Harry the Blood Demon
by wille179
Summary: There is a lot more to magic than simply waving a wand and saying a spell, something Harry Potter knows all too well. After all, when a mere mouth full of someone else's blood can drastically alter your life, learning magic's secrets is a must. (Amoral!Monstrous!Ravenclaw!Harry. No bashing, no romance.)
1. Awakening

Throughout history, wizards had discovered countless ways to manipulate magic — just about every material could channel magic and every action could direct it. But, of all methods of magic, it was the soul-spell that was the most revered. A wizard could only ever have one soul-spell in their entire life, but once they performed it once, performing it again was as easy and instinctive as breathing.

The animagus transformation and the metamorphmagus ability were two such soul-spells, as were things like parseltongue, soul-bonds, pyrokinesis, and a myriad of other abilities. You could only ever have one, and getting one would destroy your potential to learn another, but until that time, one could theoretically acquire _any_ of them.

Each soul-spell had a different way of being acquired. Some were merely the result of being born at exactly the right moment or being in the right place at the right time, while others needed a complex series of difficult rituals to acquire.

And then there was the blood demon ritual. It was a seemingly simple ritual, but even the slightest variations created dramatically different results. One practitioner tried it and was turned into the first werewolf. Twelve others throughout history became the progenitors of twelve different strains of vampirism. Monsters, many of whom were lost to history, frequently appeared as a result of that ritual.

All it took was two simple steps done while in the right general mindset: First, the user must drink the blood of a still living human with even the smallest drop of magic. Even squibs had more than enough magic to work with.

* * *

 _Harry snapped. Rage, bottled up from seven years of abuse, exploded out of him all at once. With a feral cry, he leapt at his whale of a cousin. His fingernails clawed at the fat boy while he bit at his cousin with all his might._

 _Blood gushed into his mouth. Without thinking, the young boy swallowed. His teeth stayed firmly attached, despite the flow of the crimson liquid, forcing him to swallow more every time his mouth filled up._

 _Meanwhile, his hands clawed at Dudley's eyes. With his magic empowered by his rage, Harry's fingernails dug into Dudley with supernatural ease._

* * *

And second, before the blood has been digested, the wizard must kill the person they drank from in the heat of passion.

* * *

 _His nails, sharpened by his magic, slid across Dudley's throat. The strange, gurgling noise Dudley made was enough to snap Harry out of the strongest throws of his rage. It made him let go just enough that when the boot of his teacher collided with him, Harry went sprawling._

 _Unfortunately, their teacher's intervention came far too late. By the time the ambulance came, Dudley Dursley was dead._

 _The death was ruled accidental manslaughter. As Harry was only eight, the criminal justice system of England ruled that Harry was too young to be considered guilty of a crime. But, considering the nature of the crime and the Dursleys' on-record statements, a quiet investigation was launched anyway, just to see_ why _Harry's attack on Dudley had happened and what had prompted Vernon and Petunia to act like they had. Harry's living conditions were revealed._

 _The story briefly appeared on the muggle news but, thanks to the machinations of Albus Dumbledore and the magics he left to protect the Dursleys, the story itself never reached wizard eyes — not even Dumbledore's._

 _Harry knew none of this. His mind was, at the time, far more preoccupied with the bizarre changes occurring in his body. He'd thought his actions were monstrous, silently agreeing with his aunt's accusing shouts of the same, and so his magic, wild and malleable under the effects of the accidental ritual, decided to make him into a monster._

* * *

The blood-demon ritual, in actuality, was something of a defense mechanism possessed by all wizards. Its basic purpose was to give a wizard who was angry and desperate the strength to keep on fighting at all costs. When activated, the ritual's magic scoured the bodies of, its host, the victim, and any souls nearby for useful abilities. Then the magic latched onto its wizard's mindset, and using everything it had found, built a new body and powerset.

The cost of the ritual was steep, but the benefits were far greater.

* * *

 _ **One year later...**_

Harry Potter slid open the window of his room in the orphanage. He crawled up onto the windowsill, then slipped out into the cool, foggy air of a London night. But the beast that hit the ground looked nothing like the boy it had been a second ago.

With speed far greater than should have been possible for an animal that size, it dashed off into the night, only stopping once it reached a familiar alleyway a good distance away. The creature, only vaguely feline in shape, shifted. Its hind-legs grew longer while muscles thickened all across its body. Its front paws twisted and elongated until they formed functional but inhuman hands. Its eyes — all six of them — moved across its face while the skull itself rotated vertically relative to the spine it was attached to.

The beast, once quadrupedal, stood up on its hind legs, now well adapted to a bipedal gait. Taking a running leap, it clambered onto the fire escape and quickly scaled the building with surprisingly little noise.

Its eyes, glowing with emerald light, scanned the rooftop while its nose checked for hidden scents. Finding nothing of note, it settled down against the short wall that surrounded the flat rooftop garden. With little more than the barest of thoughts, as if merely flexing a muscle, the monstrous figure shifted back into the form of the nine-year-old Harry Potter.

From the bag strapped to his back — which, like his clothes, had vanished when he'd transformed only to reappear when he'd turned back — Harry pulled out a very peculiar book. He'd gotten it from the library, but he'd had to hide it so that the matron of the orphanage wouldn't take it from him. As a "proud Christian woman," the idea of him — a boy who'd killed his own cousin — having a book on demonology, of all things, had frightened her. The first time he'd been caught with the book, he'd ended up getting spanked and had been burdened with far more chores than before. None were as bad as when he'd been at the Dursley's house, but he still hated it.

Here though, on the roof of a distant building and under the light of the moon, he was free. He could do what he wanted. He could look for answers. Harry had no idea what had happened to him, but he'd hoped that this book, and books like it, had the answers.

As he shifted back into his other form — it was growing more comfortable than his own skin — Harry flipped open the encyclopedia of daemons to the dog-eared page and continued reading. He hadn't found what he was yet, but he was sure the answer was somewhere.

He flipped the page, but he found himself distracted. His aunt's last words to him echoed through his mind. _"Your mother was a witch, and married that devil of a man. It's no wonder they had a hellspawn like_ you _as a child."_ She didn't say anything about his other form, but Harry was struck with the feeling that she _knew_.

If he was a monster, if he'd _always been_ a monster, just waiting to shed his human skin, that would have explained _so_ much — the hateful looks his "family" gave him, the indifference with which all the adults of Surry had treated him, and how he'd been able to kill without feeling regret. He was a monster, a _demon_.

The thought brought him some measure of inner peace. He knew what he was, and thus he knew he definitely had some sort of place in the grand scheme of things. As he was only a child, he didn't really ponder the philosophical nature of what he was feeling, and simply was content with being himself.

His musings were interrupted by his stomach growling. Harry was almost always hungry when in his demon form, even if he'd just eaten in his human form. He ignored it and turned his attention back to his book.

The moon had moved a good distance across the sky when Harry's reading was interrupted once more. But rather than his own thoughts or his hungry stomach intruding, it was a pair of loud cracks, followed almost instantly by heated shouting from the alleyway below.

Harry shifted into a quadrupedal form and slunk towards the edge of the roof. He peered down.

Two men in strange clothes were down there, shouting at each other. They drew sticks and pointed them at each other. With a flick of their wrists, both men fired colorful bolts of light at each other. Back and forth, they exchanged barrages of light, and wherever the lights hit, strange things happened.

One of them managed to land a hit with a green spell. The struck man instantly collapsed. He didn't move again. The other man nodded, satisfied. Then, with another loud crack, the victor vanished.

Harry, acting _almost_ on instinct, leapt down from the roof. Despite the several story drop, he landed gracefully on all fours without even a twinge of pain. Around him, the shadows twisted and extended, covering both him and the man, hiding them from view. But despite the darkness, his eyes saw just fine.

The demon-boy slunk closer to the fallen man, then shifted to a smaller, less intimidating form. He nudged the man.

The man didn't respond. He didn't wake.

Harry pressed his ear to the man's chest, but despite his excellent hearing, there was no sound — neither the beat of a heart nor the breath of life. The man was dead.

Harry placed his paw on the man's forehead. But rather than stop upon contacting the skin, his paw started flowing around the corpse's head. Harry's flesh stretched and grew, swiftly enveloping the man in a skintight cocoon that slipped under the corpse's clothing.

The moment the man was entirely enveloped, Harry clenched. There came a sickening crunch as his bones were simultaneously crushed. Several more crunches followed as the fleshy cocoon shrank yet again. Within seconds, Harry's paw returned to its original size and shape. The only trace that there had ever been a man there was his empty clothing, his bag, and the fact that Harry's stomach was no longer rumbling with hunger.

Of all the "demonic" abilities he'd discovered he'd had, that was perhaps both the most disturbing, yet satisfying one in his arsenal. The first time he'd absorbed someone was entirely accidental (and he'd been lucky he'd not been caught), but, after the initial rush of pleasure, it had left him feeling so strong and healthy. His demon form had grown significantly, while even his human form had grown bigger and healthier.

Plus, it wasn't as if this guy was going to be using his body anymore. He'd already been killed by...

Harry realized in that moment that he'd just seen a wizard's duel. It made sense that those flashes of light were spells.

Realizing that the sounds probably would have drawn attention, Harry grabbed up the dead wizard's belongings and dashed away. Taking refuge behind a dumpster in a different alley, he sat down and started going through the wizard's belongings.

The black robes, he folded and set aside. Then he grabbed the wizard's wand. He dropped it almost immediately after and shuddered; the way the wand had cozied up to his magic had felt pleasant in all the _wrong_ ways. He got the impression that the wand was trying to molest him (and yes, he did know exactly what "molesting" entailed).

Harry reached for the bag next. To his surprise, he found that it was _much_ bigger on the inside, and held all sorts of cool things. Gold, silver and bronze coins, strange devices, scrolls of parchment, quills, inkwells, and all sorts of other things came out. But what most caught his attention was the book and the dagger that had been strapped together with thick leather bands.

When he had undone the bindings, he immediately unsheathed the ornate dagger. Almost instantly, he felt the power radiating off the blade — a seductive energy that called out to his very soul. He sheathed the blade once more, deciding to definitely keep it.

As for the book, it took him a second to decipher the strange font on the leather-bound cover, but when he did, he smiled grimly.

 _Blood Magicks._

He flipped through its pages. Even from the little he read, he got the vibe that it was written by someone evil, but who knew exactly what they were talking about and was passionate about teaching what he knew.

Harry packed up the belongings of the dead wizard, shoving them into the magically expanded bag. Then, stealthfully, he retraced his steps, snuck back onto the roof where he'd been reading, gathered his own belongings, and then disappeared into the night.

* * *

The blood demon ritual only had a few paragraphs worth of information in the dark tome. The author confessed that he knew very little about why the ritual did what it did or how it worked. He also confessed that he knew not why it didn't work for the majority of people who tried it, or what made the people who it did work for so unique.

And of what it told Harry, most of that he already knew. But in Harry's mind, aside from putting a name to what had happened to him, it also made him firmly believe in the authenticity of the book. Given the breadth of topics covered in the book and the depth to which it covered them, that was a wonderful thing.

The fight between the two wizards proved to him that magic existed — and that Aunt Petunia was correct. The book, in its discussion on how to best keep the results of its rituals hidden from the eyes of muggles, had confirmed for him that there was a whole society of magical people hidden away from common knowledge.

The mysteries of the world were laid before him, and some of their answers were in his hands. He practically devoured the book's dark secrets. Every waking moment he could, he read and reread the text, memorizing its teachings.

Nearly three months had passed for him in the blink of an eye. It was the third full moon since he'd acquired the book, but the first one for which he'd decided he was ready. He had a notebook packed full of runes, memorized from _Blood Magicks,_ all spelling out the various things he wanted to do for himself. He'd taken great precautions in preparing the rune sequences, having taken the book's warnings seriously, and had memorized them well.

The dagger he'd found with the book, a ritual athame, floated behind his head. A drop of his blood poured into a well inside the hilt had given him control over it; moving the blade felt like moving his own limb.

Having readied everything, Harry assumed his demon form and climbed up to the roof of the orphanage. The shadows twisted and bent around him, shrouding him in darkness as he climbed.

He spread the tarp he'd carried with him and laid down atop it. Eyes towards the moon, Harry focused on the power coursing through his veins. The floating dagger positioned itself above the bare skin between his navel and his groin. He shifted his face to let him speak, then began the incantation.

The first rune, the book had told him, was _the_ most critical one; it and the intent behind it would forever taint all future rituals. According to one book, two wizards had tried the same ritual for improving their endurance, but one had used the rune for combat while the other had used the rune for passion. Both had had their endurance improved, but whereas one had gotten a better body overall, the other wizard's improvements had been strongly focused on his sexual endurance.

So, with his intent in mind, Harry used the knife to carve the rune for _vitality_ into his abdomen. He wanted to be strong and healthy, not the weak little kid that got beat up by his cousin and not the scrawny boy that he was because of his family's starvation campaign against him. The world was big, and he wanted to see it all, which he couldn't if he was weak and sickly.

Then he carved the rune for _health,_ to expand on the _vitality_ rune. Next came _strength, power, endurance, durability,_ and _life._ Seven runes, all with the intent of improving his body and extending his own life. Those seven, but especially _vitality_ , would be the foundation of his self-improvement.

The demon sat up. Carving into his own skin had hurt surprisingly little. He wiped away the blood and traced the scabs that had been left behind, the blade having rapidly sealed his wounds shut. They would certainly scar.

His magic was already reacting. He could feel it heating up, especially around his abdomen. The pleasant warmth spread across his body, invigorating it. The demonic kid grinned sharply, feeling the results of his work take hold. That was all he could risk doing tonight. And though he wouldn't get another chance to try until the next full moon, for now, it was enough.

* * *

Six months had passed since the night he'd carved his first runes. His chest now had three sets of seven runes, all geared towards reinforcing and improving his body. The second set was aimed at strengthening his body offensively, while the third aimed at general defensive measures. He could have done more, but he decided to hold off until he had a better understanding of what he might face in the future.

As good of a book as it might have been, _Blood Magicks_ only contained a tiny fraction of all magics known. There could be better things elsewhere, and he wanted to avoid getting seven sets of seven until he was far more knowledgeable about what was possible.

That hadn't stopped Harry from performing other rituals on himself. He'd used the four other full moons to the best of his ability, picking and choosing rituals that would help him the most. But, without access to exotic ingredients, other tools, or more magical knowledge — especially wand-related knowledge — he couldn't do even a tenth of what the book had to offer.

And so, out of options, the demonic boy started developing his own way of doing magic. He'd considered searching for wizards to learn (or steal books) from, but realized that that was unlikely to work. The orphanage matron kept an annoyingly close watch on him. So, without outsider knowledge to draw upon, Harry reluctantly decided to figure it out on his own.

The muggle library, much to Harry's relief, turned out to be fairly good at giving him ideas, even if very few of them actually worked and fewer still had any sort of instruction at all. But he did stumble across something that worked.

The whole point of the _Blood Magicks_ tome was that blood had power, and the core foundation of Harry's runes was that symbols also had power. Harry figured that runes written with blood, regardless of if they were on his body or not, had the ability to shape the world.

He was right, of course. It would take him a long time to master, but he was right.

* * *

 _ **Eight Months Later...**_

Calmly, the ten-year-old Harry Potter walked up to the matron of the orphanage. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

"What is it, Mr. Potter?"

He held out a blood soaked sheet of paper. The moment her eyes fell upon it, the paper disintegrated into ash and her eyes fogged. "You will forget I exist. You will destroy any record of my existence. You will act ignorant of my existence to anyone who mentions my name."

Silently, robotically, the matron nodded as Harry's magic programmed the instructions into her mind.

"You will give me whatever money you can spare without undue burden to yourself, then you will forget giving me the money and not question the deficit."

Again, the matron nodded.

"Dismissed."

Her eyes unfogged at once. She hurried on without a word to Harry. A minute later, she returned with about one hundred pounds worth of cash. She handed them to Harry without question.

Harry slipped the money into a backpack he'd procured to hold and disguise his odd-looking magic bag. He turned around and walked away. The matron didn't acknowledge him departing, and instead moved on to whatever business she'd been up to before.

Harry walked out the door of the orphanage for the last time without a comment from anyone he passed. A similar but reuseable set of blood runes to the ones that had been on that paper were painted on the door to his room. Anyone who came looking for him would forget him and destroy anything that hinted at his existence.

In his mind, it had taken Harry far too long to learn how to do that. But now, he was _finally_ free.

Outside, he ducked around a corner and shifted. Over the two years since he'd awoken his demon form, he'd learned much about his body. He knew that he could shapeshift to a huge degree, but he couldn't add or remove features; only change their outward appearance. But even that was a powerful ability. And while that limitation would never let his demon form ever look truly human — the eyes alone were a dead giveaway — he could adapt.

His skin thickened and stretched in places while changing colors, taking on the texture and appearance of a leather jacket with a hood. The skin on his legs changed to look like pants, while his feet shifted to look like they were in leather boots. The fact that his clothing always vanished annoyed him, but he'd adapted to that too. Inside his body, his bones and organs adjusted to roughly the proportions of an adult human. Behind him, his tail thinned and shrank until it looked like a half-undone leather belt.

He pulled up the skin-hood around his head. His magic stretched the shadows, obscuring the details of his inhuman face. Then, he closed four of his six eyes, leaving two unnaturally bright ones. Harry had practiced this form quite intensively, having grown quite fond of how intimidating it looked.

He picked up his backpack from where he'd set it; anything on him at the time of his shift vanished, and he rather needed the magic bag within it. He drew his stolen wand from the backpack and slipped it into the fold of skin that was serving as his jacket sleeve. It still seemed to kiss and caress his magic strangely whenever he touched it, but the wand was no longer intolerably disgusting with its affection towards him. Considering that he was going looking for wizards, that was a good thing. He'd even figured out a few basic spells using the wand, so if he ever met a wizard, he could probably pass himself off as one.

Everything set, the demon turned in place and vanished with a crack.

* * *

Harry teleported to a snow-covered roof on Charing Cross road. Over the last few months, he'd explored the city, looking for signs of magic. The alley below, on the far side of this building, was like a neon sign. He could practically feel the power here, and could tell by the people and things he saw in the alley that it was a wizard haven. He'd never been in there, though. He couldn't risk trouble, not when he was expected back at the orphanage. But now he had nothing holding him back.

He walked towards the edge, the thick skin of his feet unbothered by the snow. Peering down, he watched the hustle and bustle of the alleyway. Wizards and witches came and went, not a care in the world. Some teleported into the alleyway, others teleported out. Deciding that it wouldn't be all that unusual if he did so himself, Harry prepared himself for the jump, only to pause. The clothing he'd emulated with his skin would have passed in non-magical London, but here? It stood out even more than usual.

With a thought, he extended a flap of skin from his "jacket" and turned it into a full-length robe. He sprouted fur from the inside of the hood, and for his own comfort, lined the inside of the robe with fur as well. When he was done, it looked to the world as if Harry was wearing a rather form-fitting wizard robe.

He teleported. Nobody batted an eye when the demon appeared in the alleyway, and for that, Harry let out a silent cheer.

Now, like the kid he was, he eagerly set out to explore the shops. He had some wizard money — sixteen galleons, twenty sickles, and sixteen knuts, according to the inscriptions on the coins — but had absolutely no idea how much that was worth in terms of pounds. He also had no idea how to get more money (aside from thievery) and no idea if he'd get laughed at for using that money (or for using pounds). So, reluctantly, Harry settled for just exploring and not buying anything.

He knew he'd be resorting to thievery eventually anyway, and he knew he'd have to figure out somewhere to stay, so he figured that all he was really doing was waiting to buy, not _not buying._ That little leap of logic made things better in his mind.

Harry wandered up and down the alley, occasionally peaking in shops. He ducked into a few here and there, including, much to his delight, a book shop. And everywhere Harry went, he watched and observed.

After confirming that the coins he had were indeed the currency used here, Harry strolled into a small pasty shop and bought himself some lunch. As he ate, Harry watched the crowd go by. One witch in particular, a girl he estimated at sixteen or seventeen, caught his attention thanks to her vibrant pink hair.

Without warning, her hair had turned blue and lengthened.

Harry's eyes widened as, for a fleeting moment, he wondered if she were like him. But he dashed the thought. He was a murderer, and had only awakened his powers by killing his cousin and drinking his blood. The odds of that being the case for her _and_ for her to have ended up being nearly the same as him were slim to none. Still, he was intrigued.

As if she felt his stare on her back, the girl turned and spotted him through the window. Her hair turned pitch black and the features of her face hardened in a very abnormal way. An older woman with brown, single-colored hair, noticed, then followed the younger girl's gaze to Harry.

The older woman — the mother, Harry guessed — grabbed her daughter's shoulder. She said something, then pushed on the girl's shoulder. Reluctantly, the girl turned away, her hair turning fiery red in the process.

They didn't go anywhere, as they appeared to be waiting for someone. Harry kept watching them, and apparently she knew she was still being watched, if her occasional glance his way was any indication. Finally, she full-on stared back at him. Without breaking eye-contact, she warped her face and shortened her hair, taking on a masculine appearance.

He gave her a thumbs up.

The girl stomped towards the pasty shop door. Her mother, noticing her leave, trailed after her. The girl entered the building and marched right up to him. "Something funny, mister? Because your staring is creeping me out. Stop it."

"I was just curious." Harry's voice came out rough and warbled, with an inhuman note to it that no amount of shapeshifting seemed able to rid him of. "Is that a spell, or are you able to change your appearance naturally?"

"Naturally. I'm a metamorphmagus." Harry recognized the term from his book, but knew little about what it meant.

"Oh. That's nice."

"And now you know, so you can stop staring now."

"Alright." Making a snap decision, Harry opened his other four eyes, letting their glow punch through his shadows. "I won't stare." He closed the extra eyes again, but by then, she'd seen them. As had her mother, who'd just entered.

He turned back to look out the window, deliberately ignoring their reaction. The girl didn't take too kindly to being ignored like that, and grabbed his shoulder.

Harry looked at her just in time to see confusion spread across her face and feel a pleasurable, inviting warmth from her hand. "Ugh, what the hell is your robe made of?"

"Living skin," Harry replied honestly.

She tried to pull her hand away in disgust, but found it stuck fast to Harry. "Hey! I'm stuck!" Despite her struggling, her hand started sinking into his body.

Harry could taste her through his skin. The salt of her sweat complimented her flavor well, making her one of the better things he'd ever tasted. He wanted to eat her — the little pasty was hardly enough — but reluctantly let her go when her mother drew her wand. His skin, still with an impression of her hand, flowed back into its proper shape.

Her mother gripped her other hand. "Nymphadora, come." The woman dragged the girl away. Harry watched her go.

"Alright, that settles it," a man next to Harry spoke, "you're officially the creepiest bloke I've ever met."

"I admit, I try." Harry chuckled a bit. "I don't like people thinking I'm weak."

The man hummed. He then pulled out a notepad and a quill from a pocket that was too small to have held either, and jotted something down. "That's not a bad reason, all things considered." He finished writing, then stuck out his hand in an offered greeting. "Adam Boot, journalist by trade a but novelist at heart."

"Call me James. I'm new here..." Harry shook the man's hand, deliberately forcing his skin not to stick to the man. He'd known he could taste with his skin in his demon form, but he rarely got the opportunity to touch living people in this body. Nymphadora's unusually good flavor had caught him off guard, and now he was hungry for flesh again. Adam's taste was nearly as good, so it was a struggle to make his skin act like ordinary skin.

"Ah. Well, Diagon Alley is probably the best place in London for everything magical you could need. There's Horizont Alley too, and Carkitt Market, both down that way." He pointed to their left. "And Knockturn Alley that way." He pointed right. "But Knockturn isn't the sort of place respectable people go, and it's basically a deathtrap at night for the average bloke."

"I see," Harry replied, silently noting the name for further investigation. He wondered if there would be things worthwhile for him down that way.

"Anyway, just thought you ought to know."

"Thanks."

"Odd question here, but do you mind if I use your look? I'm writing a book, and, well, the whole 'living skin cloak, face hidden by shadows, glowing eyes' thing is really quite brilliant." Adam smiled hopefully. "It'd make for a good villain."

"Go ahead," Harry replied, flattered.

They talked for a bit, with Harry asking questions about the local area and community expand his base knowledge so he wouldn't end up looking like a fool. But by the time they went their separate ways, Harry had gotten Adam's address and a standing invitation to write him any time.

Somehow, he'd become friends with a human. He chuckled at that. Harry's figured it was a bit like a human becoming friends with a treacle tart.

* * *

The evening came, and upon recommendation, he'd gotten a room for himself at the Leaky Cauldron. But he hadn't paid for it. After testing to see if his hypnosis spell worked on the owner, Tom, and confirming that it did, Harry had commandeered a room for himself. With runes of blood painted on the door, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and the windowsill, Harry effectively erased the room from the memory of anyone who saw the door. The other runes were there to give him a degree of privacy.

Now in private, Harry shifted back to his more natural form. His body radically increased in size while his excess skin shrank back into place. Fur spread across his body, while the horns on his head grew back to their proper size and the spines that had been flattened on his back stood to their proper shapes.

The vaguely feline beast climbed up onto the bed and curled around so that his tail was tucked under his head. He fell asleep almost instantly.


	2. Experimentation

Harry's supply of wizard money was running very low; food alone had eaten it up. He knew that unless he got a job (which would cut into both his research time and his exploration), his adventures in Diagon Alley would be coming to a close soon. There was another option, though.

He's taken the exact opposite of Adam Boot's advice and gone into Knockturn Alley at night. He learned very quickly that Adam was entirely correct. Within minutes, he'd been attacked by a vampire.

But a solution to his financial woes came to him. As he counted the coins the vampire had owned, he realized that killing people was profitable. Sure, there wasn't all that much money in the bag, but it came with a meal.

He also got a few other knickknacks out of it, and another wand. This one practically hissed and bit at his magic; compared to that, he'd take his magic-molesting wand any day.

Twice more he'd been mugged, and twice more he made a meal out of his attackers. By now, the demonic boy had amassed a small collection of clothes. With them in his possession, he had something to wear while in his "James" form other than his own skin.

He kept the hood, though. His face still wasn't anything approaching human.

Days passed. Harry learned about the abilities wizards had and the sort of things they were expected to know. That was good. But what bothered him was the books about Harry Potter.

He was apparently famous for killing a dark wizard when he was just a baby. It amused him that Dudley's death wasn't his first kill, but everything else about the "boy-who-lived" annoyed him. He didn't grow up in some castle, waited on by servants. He didn't have fanatic powers and fight dragons on a regular basis. He was a man-eating demon who currently had to kill just to live! And that didn't even consider the orphanage, or even _the Dursleys_.

It ticked Harry off that he was famous for something he couldn't remember and glorified for being something that he wasn't.

But it gave Harry a good reason to never turn back into his human form ever again. He'd be mobbed by these people!

He also apparently was the heir to the Potter family fortune, but seeing as he was currently a homeless kid with absolutely no knowledge of how the government, money, and inheritance worked, that money may as well have not existed for all the good it did him.

But he could adapt. He always had and he always would.

* * *

The next time Harry ventured into Knockturn Alley, he was on the hunt. The first full moon of the new year had come and gone, and with it came the time to place a new set of runes on his skin.

 _Predator_ formed the center of the fourth set, for that's what he was, and that's what he intended this set of runes to help him do. _Shadow_ came next, to serve as a foundation for the rest of the cluster. _Control_ came next, followed by another _Life_ rune (though this one had a different intent than the original). He then linked the two of those together to the _Shadow_ rune with the runes _Weapon_ and _Attack._ Finally, he capped off the cluster with _Possession._

Applying that set of runes had knocked him unconscious, but when he'd awoken, the changes had been easily apparent and beyond his own expectations. Now, in the light of the nearly full moon, the shadows were dark, but Harry's own shadow was darker still. It moved and writhed of its own volition, like fingers tapping impatiently.

The young demon found hit target: a man, loitering around a corner, waiting for a passerby. Harry didn't know this man, nor did he know what the man wanted. All Harry knew was that the man was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Harry's shadow erupted from his feet, a flat abyss spreading across the ground and the walls. It slid across the man like any other shadow would, save for how dark it was. The man barely had time to shout.

Then the shadows retreated. The man fell to his knees. Below him, the cobblestone of the alley glowed with moonlight as if he weren't even there; the man had no shadow. Or rather, _Harry_ had his shadow.

In the grip of his own shadow, the man's thrashed and fought, but Harry's eventually subdued it. Weakened, the demonic shadow set to work, bending and twisting the stolen shadow according to its master's whims. Then, it released its captive.

The stolen shadow slid across the ground, where it attached itself to the man once more. The man, revitalized, stood. "The hell was that?" He made no move to draw his wand at Harry.

"An experiment. How do you feel?"

The man considered. "Just dandy, really."

"And who are you loyal to?"

"You," the man answered. "I'd give my life for you, which is really bloody strange. I have no idea who you are, but yeah... and the idea of following my old boss just doesn't mean the same thing... Weird."

Curious, Harry asked, "What do you mean?"

"Hmm... I know that I liked the boss, and I still do, and I also know that he'd kill me if I betrayed him, but neither seem to matter now. All that matters is you, master."

Harry nodded. "I see. Tell me your name."

"Jacob O'Reilly, sir."

"You may call me James," Harry replied. Back when he'd first given that name, using his father's name had been an impulse. Now, the demon was growing to like it as his persona's moniker. "It is not my real name, but it will do."

Harry pulled down his hood, letting Jacob see his face. He opened all six of his eyes. Jacob flinched fearfully, but didn't run. "Now, let's talk. I have a _lot_ of questions."

* * *

Jacob had been an unexpected treasure trove of information, knowing the ins and outs of Knockturn alley. He also helped Harry identify the various things he'd acquired, and when the vast majority turned out to be useless to him, Jacob also pointed Harry to Borgin and Burkes, where he could pawn them off.

But the information the demonic boy got from Jacob that he most desired was something that Jacob couldn't tell him. With a willing subject at hand (for a given measure of "willing"), Harry _finally_ had someone to practice his craft on that wasn't himself.

He'd already acquired a book on anatomy from muggle London, and had found another book on blood magic at Borgin and Burke's. Those two had given him a plethora of ideas to try out.

Harry started with basic enhancements so that Jacob could survive whatever he threw at him. Jacob had been pleased with that part at least; who wouldn't want to be tougher? The more experimental procedures that followed didn't always work quite as well, but none of them _hurt_ Jacob, which pleased both of them.

By the time Harry was done, Jacob's skin was tougher and almost entirely spell-resistant. His bones, ligaments, and tendons were stronger while his muscles were more powerful. And according to Jacob, his connection with his own magic was much greater than before.

"Honestly, even if you hadn't taken my shadow, doing this for me would have won you my loyalty anyway," he'd said. "I know a couple other guys who'd be willing to let you experiment on them like this."

The demon's six eyes widened in glee. "Go get them. But be discrete." From his robe pockets (the stolen ones, not his skin), Harry withdrew a few of his hypnosis paper charms and a few of the memory-modifying charms. "And use these if you need to. You wizards only seem to worry if someone draws their wand. Nobody cares about paper until it's far too late."

"Sure thing, master."

Unbeknownst to Harry, that moment was the start of a very lucrative business. People were willing to pay good money for enhancements, especially those of a "darker" variety that they couldn't or wouldn't do themselves. But at the moment, Harry didn't care about money as anything other than a means to an end.

* * *

Three months had passed since then. Harry's experiments had grown _much_ bolder in that time. With several enhanced humans serving as his loyal bodyguards and helpers, the demon felt confident in expanding his practices. They'd also helped him move to a better location, rather than that commandeered room in the Leaky Cauldron.

Twice, they'd had a close encounter with Aurors that came to investigate, and twice Harry walked away with two new shades, as he'd taken to calling the people whose shadows he'd stolen. But though they were now forcefully on his own side, Harry redoubled on his precautions.

Harry thanked his luck that he could kill without leaving dead bodies and dispose of the dead. Some of his experiments had gotten _messy_.

But even if there was the looming danger of being discovered, it only served to thrill Harry. For so long, he'd been the Dursleys' whipping boy, their slave. Now, _he_ was the strong one. _He_ had followers, ones that adored him, even. For the boy who'd lived alone in the cupboard, it was like standing on top of the world.

A thought occurred to him. His head popped up. Quickly, he set aside the journal he'd been taking notes in. "Jacob!"

The man's head peeked around the doorframe. "Yes, Master?" Harry'd never ordered the man to stay with him, but whenever he wasn't doing work for his "boss," now another of the demon's shades, Jacob hung out at Harry's place, generally making himself useful of his own free will.

"Jacob, have I ever told you about my family?"

"No, sir. You haven't." Harry knew there was a mind-reading technique, but he didn't know it. He wished he did just so he could see what Jacob was thinking.

"To be honest, I know very little about my parents, and what I do know is contradictory. All I know for sure is that I was left on a doorstep in the middle of November as a baby, wearing nothing but my human form's skin and a thin blanket. The woman who believed she was my aunt took me in, at least until I killed their own son several years later."

"You were a monster even back then?" Jacob asked. There was no malice or accusation in his voice, only curiosity.

"Just the family 'good-for-nothing freak,' actually. But if it wasn't for them, well, we wouldn't be here right now. You'd still be a thug working the streets and I'd probably still believe I was a human. I think we should go and _thank_ them, don't you think?" Harry grinned wickedly, showing off his shark-like front teeth. "Plus, I have no idea how well some of my magic works on muggles and squibs."

"Good idea," Jacob agreed.

Harry held up a clawed finger. "But there's one thing you should know. I trust you won't speak a word of this to anyone else, not even the other shades."

"James, my lips are sealed." He nodded and covered his own mouth for emphasis.

For the first time in a long while, Harry shifted back to his human form. His body protested, and when he'd finally changed back, he felt weak and pathetic. His clothes swapped, his robes vanishing only to be replaced with the clothes he'd been wearing when he fled the orphanage all those months ago. Where then they'd been loose-fitting, now because of his growth, they were rather snug. Harry's body, thanks to his improved diet and blood magic, had grown to a more appropriate size for his age.

Upon seeing the scar, Jacob's eyes bugged out comically, an act Harry was almost certain wasn't possible without a bit of accidental magic. "You're Harry Potter?"

"That's what my relatives called me, yes. I'm nothing like any of those books say I am." He brushed his long, unruly hair back, exposing the scar on his head. "Of course, this could just be the result of a joke on me by whomever left me on the porch that November. I rather doubt the savior of the wizarding world would have been abandoned to abusive muggles, after all."

Jacob blinked as he processed that. "I suppose you're right. Wait, how old are you anyway?"

"Ten."

If it was possible, Jacob's eyes went even wider. " _Ten?!_ Merlin's beard! You're ten, and you're already a blood mage?"

"The first wizard I ever ate had a great book on blood magic in his bag. It was inspiring." Harry shrugged, not knowing what else to say. "And I'm almost eleven now."

"I wonder if you'll get a Hogwarts letter?"

"Dunno. I hope so. That library seems rather interesting, especially the restricted section. And potions seems quite interesting too..." He shook his head. Then he stuck out his arm. "Anyway, it's midday, so Aunt Petunia should be home alone right now. I'm going to go visit her, if you want to tag along."

Jacob grabbed onto Harry's arm. With a crack of displaced air, they teleported (Harry though _apparated_ was a silly name for it). Rematerializing in Surrey, the two of them didn't have to walk far to find Number 4, Privet Drive.

They came to the door. Harry rang the bell.

A minute passed. The door swung open. Petunia's pleasant-for-company smile evaporated in an instant. _"You!"_ she hissed murderously. "What are you doing here?!"

"I came to say _thank you._ " Harry grinned. He let a little bit of his other form bleed through, giving his smile a shark-like appearance. His eyes literally glowed.

"I won't hear it. You could offer me the world, and I would still despise you. Now, get out of my sight." She slammed the door shut.

Harry rolled his eyes. He pointed his finger at the door knob and flexed his magic. "Open."

The door slammed open with a loud bang. Petunia whirled around just in time to see Harry stick the wand back up his sleeve. "I told you to leave me alone, you monster!"

Harry stepped in. His shadow, which up until now had been sitting calmly, writhed across the floor like spilled, boiling ink. It stretched across the ground and up the walls, surrounding Petunia, leaving her stranded on a tiny island of light. Her instincts served her well, for she didn't run, unknowingly keeping her own shadow safe.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Aunt Petunia. There's so much I want to know, and you have answers. But as I said earlier, I do want to thank you and Uncle Vernon. You sending me to that Orphanage was the best thing that ever happened to me."

"You can't do this to me!" Petunia said. "It's against the law!"

"The Ministry of Magic only tracks the magic used by a minor's wand after they've been enrolled in Hogwarts. I have not been enrolled and this—" he motioned to his shadow, "—isn't wand magic. They don't even know I'm here."

"Dumbledore will know! That old man has ways of knowing things!" Petunia screeched.

"Dumbledore? The headmaster of Hogwarts? Interesting." Harry shrugged. "See, that's the sort of thing I need to get from you. Now, let's go inside and sit." He turned to Jacob. "Would you make us some tea? Third cabinet on the right, if I recall correctly."

"Yes, master," he replied. The shade calmly strolled across the shadow-covered floor, his body momentarily turning into a cloud of insubstantial darkness as he passed through Harry's shadow. Pausing by Petunia, who was as white as a ghost, Jacob said, "I wouldn't touch his shadow if I were you. It eats people." His voice was hollow and echoed unnaturally.

Petunia's eyes shot to the ground, staring at the boiling darkness that had halted inches away from her feet. Her eyes darted up to Harry, who made a shooing motion. "Don't worry, I won't do a thing to you if you just stay calm," the demon remarked.

"Fine, what do you want?" Petunia spat.

"To get answers and to give you a gift. That's all." He motioned towards the couch while parting his shadow to create a safe path for Petunia to walk on. As he sat down on the couch, Harry withdrew a handful of galleons. They floated above his open hand, slowly losing cohesion until they were blobs of liquid gold. Harry merged them together and shaped them into a single, small ingot. He offered it to Petunia.

When a wizard said "wandless" magic, they meant focusless; that's not what Harry had done, as he'd instead channeled his power through the blood in his veins. If it weren't for his healing ability, it would be stupid for him to do that too much, as it damaged his blood. But as that wasn't an issue, Harry was free to show off.

"Here. Solid gold. You were complaining that I was a burden. Consider this repayment."

She didn't take it. "Nothing will bring back my son."

"Necromancy might," Harry said, shrugging, "but I'm not about to learn that for your sake." He set the gold on the coffee table. Just then, Jacob came back in with the magically heated tea. Harry poured himself a cup and took a sip. "It's better than anything I got when I was living in your cupboard. Maybe we wouldn't be here if you'd offered me real food and a real bed."

Jacob raised an eyebrow. Petunia bristled. Harry ignored them. "So, Aunt Petunia, let's talk about my mom, my dad, and Albus Dumbledore. I'm curious about why he's involved, and I'm curious as to why I was left with _you._ Talk."

"Dumbledore was the one who left you here, in a basket, with nothing but a letter telling me that my sister and her husband were dead, and that some madman had tried to kill you. His letter said the people who killed Lily might come after us, but he'd put up blood wards to protect us so long as we cared for you." She snorted. "Fat lot of good that did us, bastard." Her eyes glared daggers at Harry.

Harry, though, found himself intrigued. Blood Magic? That made things interesting.

Before the demon could ask his next question, a sound from upstairs caught the group's attention. "Is... is that a baby crying?"

Petunia went rigid, her nails digging into her knees. "Don't. You. Dare."

Harry sighed and retracted his shadow. "Dudley was an accident. I don't care about any other kid you've had." He reached out and touched Petunia, then teleported them upstairs.

Petunia wobbled, but the moment she'd oriented herself, she bolted into Dudley's old room to comfort the baby inside.

Harry turned away, his mood soured. As he walked down the stairs, he shifted his left index finger into a claw, sliced the back of his right hand, then collected the blood in his left palm. Using the blood he'd gathered, he started drawing a pair of his own custom runes on their front door: _Guilt_ and _Regret._ Satisfied, he smeared the rest of the blood below into a crude rendition of the rune for _Growth._ It wasn't quite a curse, but it wasn't a blessing either. It would last until they got up the nerve to wash it off.

"Jacob. We're leaving."

His minion nodded. The two of them vanished from the house.

* * *

Jacob watched his master bury himself in his research once more. Considering that his research included human experimentation, _bury_ was quite literal; his arms were covered up to his elbows in blood as he worked on the unconscious man strapped to the table.

The minion didn't speak as Harry operated, the demon's magic keeping the test subject alive even as his organs were exposed and modified. Harry was in the zone; to speak would risk the life of the subject.

But Jacob was concerned, too. Not for the subject, but for Harry. He'd been unusually sullen since the incident at the Dursley house a week ago. He only spoke of his research, having closed off more than usual.

Harry clapped his blood-soaked hands together. A wave of magic rippled outwards, and when it hit the subject's body, his wounds started rapidly healing up. Within a minute, there wasn't even a scar to indicate that anything had happened.

The man woke a moment later. "Welcome back. How do you feel?" the demonic surgeon asked. He moved to unbind the man's straps.

"Surprisingly good. What all did you do?"

"I reinforced your internal organs — they're now just as strong as dragonhide — and improved their efficiency. I also placed a set of runes on your heart that should partially protect you from a range of nasty curses. Thirdly, I upped your body's healing ability and immune system; if you're quick enough, you might be able to reattach your own limbs if they get cut off. Finally, I placed another set of runes that will liquify your internal organs should you die, so none of my secrets get out."

"Wow." The man sat up. "That's amazing, if a bit terrifying. I already feel much better... How much do I owe you?"

Harry shook his head. "I already took my payment from you. Your shadow is mine. You're free to go, but remember, don't tell anyone _anything_ about this."

"Right, sure thing, Master." He paused. "Master? Odd. Anyway, I'm off. You've got my address, right? Get in touch if you need anything." The wizard dressed himself. "I'll let you know if anything happens." He apparated away.

Jacob asked, "That wasn't all you did to him, was it?"

"Hardly. I did what I said, but I also gave him a bit of my own blood, to see if my nature is contagious, like a vampire's or a werewolf's. If it is, that's fine. If not, I've still got saliva to test on my next subject. And if that doesn't work, that's fine too."

"You wanted to make him like you? But what if he abuses that power?"

"The organ-liquefying curse I installed in him can be remotely detonated," Harry replied with a shrug. "I was going to kill him if it worked anyway. I've got someone else in mind to share my power with."

"Who?"

"I'm going to keep that to myself until I track them down. He's a slippery bloke, and I need to know a bit more about him before I commit to anything."

Jacob grinned. "I've got a few contacts I can call on if you need to find someone. Maybe they can help. Who are you looking for?"

"A guy who was supposedly a friend of my father's: Remus Lupin."

"Never heard of him, but I can ask around."

"Thanks."

* * *

April rolled into May, and May into June. By now, Harry had gathered a rather strong following in the denizens of Knockturn Alley. Many were loyal to him thanks to having had their shadows stolen and replaced, but many more were loyal to him for what he offered: lasting good health and strength. There was an allure to him.

That many of these people were also marked or unmarked Death Eaters actually helped "Demon Surgeon James;" he had clear motives — seeking _power_ and _knowledge_ — and offered power in exchange for an opportunity to learn. He didn't demand that they killed for him, he didn't ask much of them at all, and when he did ask for something, he didn't torture them if they couldn't deliver. For a "dark lord," he was surprisingly pleasant to work with, especially compared to Voldemort.

In the eyes of the Knockturn folk, he wasn't so much of a threat to fight or a lord to follow, but a fellow practitioner of the dark arts who was more than willing to help someone for a price.

Lucius Malfoy considered himself a man rich enough to control his world. Not the whole world, mind you, but Magical England was well within his grasp. To that extent, he felt sure he could pay any price the Demon Surgeon could ask. The question in Lucius's mind was if the surgeon could deliver on his promises.

"You're Jacob O'Reilly, I presume?" Malfoy asked. "The right hand of Demon Surgeon James?"

"Well," Jacob replied, "I wouldn't call myself the _right hand._ I'm just his first and most loyal ally. He does most of the work though." He shrugged. "But yeah, that's me."

"I'm interested in doing business with him, but I want to see the quality of his work."

Jacob had been several feet away from Lucius when he'd spoken, but in the span of a single blink, he'd closed the gap and had his wand pressed against Lucius's nose. "Speed." Jacob's free hand grabbed Lucius and effortlessly hoisted him up. "Strength." He tossed Lucius back.

Lucius quickly scrambled off the ground, just in time to see Jacob point his wand skyward. "Power. _Lumos Maxima!"_ Light exploded from the wand, so bright that the indirect blast actually signed Lucius's skin and blinded him despite having looked away.

He flicked his wand and silently cast a spell that restored his sight. The scent of burnt flesh and hair assaulted his nose as he rose. Jacob, his body badly charred from the heat, looked back. But even as Lucius watch, Jacob's skin restored itself back to prime condition, his hair following a second later. A silent _reparo_ had his clothes back in good condition in just as little time. "Magic." Jacob smirked. "My master's powers and skills are great, I assure you. He has simplified a large array of rituals, removing the unneeded elements to great effect. And with time, his powers will grow. Right now, he is still experimenting, still learning, and yet look at what my master has already done for me! I am his loyal shade, and I can tell you his skills are already well worth the price."

"And what is the price?" Lucius asked, thoroughly impressed. The sheer power of this man, who by all accounts had been nothing more than a street-level thug and a Hogwarts dropout, was staggering. Few people could make a _Lumos_ bright enough to feel warm, let alone burn. His had burned him even despite him not having been in the direct beam.

"Knowledge, loyalty, or money. The Demon Surgeon is a scholar; bring him tomes on ritual magic or blood magic, or let him experiment on your body. Failing that, give him your loyalty, become one of his shades. And if you are still unwilling to do that, money and a vow of silence is all he asks."

The Malfoy Library certainly had enough to appease even the greediest appetites for knowledge, meaning that if Lucius copied a few books, he could probably get those enhancements for his whole family for effectively nothing. But something nagged at him. "Loyalty. How does he ensure that those who chose to give their Loyalty don't betray him?"

"He has his ways. Thankfully, they're much more pleasant than You-Know-Who's, but that doesn't mean they aren't effective."

"I see." To Lucius, that answer stunk of _family magic,_ secret spells and techniques developed and held by one family. But seeing as nobody seemed to know the Demon Surgeon's full name, Lucius couldn't even verify that idea. A small part of him wondered if this man were a pure blood or not. "Well, I believe I will save my money and my loyalty for myself." He pulled out his business card. "But, my wife, son, and I _will_ be doing business with him. If he is free this weekend, he may come to peruse the Malfoy family Library and discuss the details of our arrangement."

"Your son?" Jacob asked. "He hasn't had much of an opportunity to work with children before, but he's mentioned that growing bodies make a much better canvas for him to work with." He took the business card. "I'll let my master know."

"Of course."

* * *

Lucius found himself waiting by the floo for the Demon Surgeon's arrival. There _was_ a chair in the floo room, even if it was mostly ornamental. Few people ever sat in it, as they only ever really passed through the room, never loitering. It had been a long time since he'd last sat there.

By the fireplace, his house-elf swept the floor in a vain attempt to remove the ever-present layer of magical ashes that coated the ground. Lucius almost considered sending the house-elf away but decided against it and instead merely tolerated its presence.

The green flames roared to life, but rather than stepping out, the man that appeared inelegantly flopped out of the fireplace and onto the house elf. When the man finally stood, Lucius was shocked to discover that his house-elf was somehow sticking to the man, and had somehow sunk partially into the self-proclaimed demon's body.

The demon shuddered. "Ugh. Never again." He looked down at the squirming elf, whose motions were only serving to pull him further in. "Oh? What are you doing there?" He reached down and pulled on the elf, who came free with a wet _shlorp._ The elf, the moment its mouth was free, screamed. It vanished with a pop a second later. "...Sorry about that. Who was that?"

"Dobby, my house-elf servant," Lucius replied.

"Huh. He tasted odd. Pleasant, but odd."

The Malfoy lord tried to wrap his head around that statement. " _Tasted?"_

The demon dropped his hood and opened all six of his eyes. "Tasted. I'm not human, Lord Malfoy. Keep that in mind."

Lucius mentally recoiled at that, though his time with the Dark Lord prevented him from showing it physically. The idea that the Demon Surgeon was _actually_ a demon scared him, and the fear only grew when he realized that he'd complimented a house-elf's flavor. That was far too much like a vampire for Lucius's tastes.

The demon dusted himself off, mumbling,"Magically augmented agility, _my arse_. I hate the floo."

"We all do. It's just too convenient to get rid of."

The demon muttered to himself, softer this time. Then, at regular volume, he said, "Well then, Lord Malfoy, you can call me James. I hear you want to do business?"

"Yes. Augment my son, wife, and I, and I'll give you copies of any books in my library that you desire."

"Let me see this library of yours and we'll negotiate."

The Malfoy Patriarch lead his guest into the library. Silently, he noted how the demon's head swiveled round to take in the opulence of his mansion, as if he'd never lived in such luxury before. And when they reached the library, the demon looked absolutely giddy, like a Weasley child given candy.

The demon zipped back and forth, moving far faster than what should have been humanly possible. He picked tomes off the shelf, flipped through them, set them back, and moved on in a small fraction of the time it would have taken Lucius to do the same.

"I think," Lucius said, "you'll be rather interested in _these_." He motioned to a set of books that he, having believed the man would be interested in, had set aside for him.

The demon zipped over and started thumbing through the books. After a few minutes, he seemed satisfied. "So, tell me what you're thinking. Better yet, go grab your family. Get them in here as a part of this talk. It's their bodies."

"Dobby!" The house-elf appeared at his master's call, but wilted in place when he saw the guest. "Go fetch Draco and Narcissa."

The house-elf popped away immediately. "I get the feeling he doesn't like me. I _can't_ imagine why," the demon muttered. "It's not like I'm going to eat him or anything..."

The two other Malfoys entered the room a minute later. Narcissa asked, "I take it this is our mystery guest? You didn't tell me you were having Mr. James over."

"Mother, father, who and _what_ is this?" The boy, who Harry assumed was his age, asked.

"This is the Demon Surgeon. He's going to be working with us."

"Yep. Now, Draco, was it?" The boy nodded. "I assume you want to grow up to be big, strong, magically powerful, handsome, correct? Well, that's what I do. I make people _better_." The demon's fingers twitched eagerly. "Your father's made me a good offer, and I've agreed to help."

He turned to face Lucius. "Although, now that I think about it, do you have anything on legilimency and occlumency? I've been having trouble finding a good text on it."

"Those are not skills one learns from books," Lucius said. "You'd need a teacher for that."

"And would you know anyone that could teach it?"

"A friend of mine could. We'll discuss that later."

The demon shrugged. "Alright. Now, as for you all, let's start with the basics..."


	3. Education

Lucius rolled his shoulders, enjoying the sensation of how easily they moved. It felt as if he were floating. Scars from his Death Eater days that had once bothered him greatly now no longer ached. Even the day-to-day pains that he'd practically forgotten about had vanished.

Bouncing behind him was his son, who was having a little difficulty with his increased strength, as every step pushed too hard on the ground and sent him a foot or so up into the air.

And behind Draco was Narcissa, who, like the Greek myth her name invoked, was staring at her reflection in a conjured mirror. Whereas Lucius had chosen to base his enhancement on the concept of health, and his son had chosen strength, Narcissa had picked beauty — and beautiful she had become. The little imperfections had all melted away, leaving flawless skin and gorgeous hair.

"I'm assuming these are permanent changes?" Lucius asked.

Harry shrugged. "Yes and no. Will the runes last forever? As long as that area of skin isn't damaged, yes. Will the effects you're feeling right now last forever? No. It's tied into your magic, so as your body, mind, and soul change, so will the effects. They'll wax and wane with your emotions, fade when you exhaust yourself, and grow when you rest. You could pour more magic into them and up the effects, or you can pull back and go back to normal. I trust you can see why you shouldn't try to disfigure yourself."

"I didn't plan on it," Lucius replied happily.

"Now, about that teacher of Occlumency and Legilimency..."

Lucius turned on a dime. "Come. I'll introduce you."

Harry teetered for a second as he adjusted course to follow. "Right now? But... alright."

"This shouldn't take long." Lucius led the demon towards the floo room, where he immediately took some of the powder and threw it into the roaring flame. Orange turned to emerald. "Hogwarts School: Head of Slytherin's Office." The flame lurched for a moment. When it stabilized, Lucius called out, "Severus."

"Lucius?" said the voice that drifted through the flames. A second later, the fire warped into the face of a hook-nosed man.

"Severus, remember when I told you about the Demon Surgeon I'd heard about?"

"That two-bit hack? I trust you stayed away from him."

"Quite the contrary... and he _is_ standing right next to me, mind you. No, he is no hack. His claims are good. I have seen the results with my own eyes. And Severus, it is amazing."

"Is it? Well, it seems my source wasn't just running his mouth after all. What is this about, Lucius?" Severus asked.

"He needs and occlumency and legilimency teacher. I think a trade of your time for his would be very much worth it," Lucius said. "May we come through?"

"You may."

Lucius walked through and gracefully landed on the other side. But when Harry walked through, he once more stumbled out and landed face-first on the ground. "Ow." He dusted himself off.

The dimly-lit dungeon office was adorned with hundreds of ingredient jars, more than a small apothecary. Harry didn't recognize any of them, but he did realize what they were for. "Severus? As in Severus Snape, the Hogwarts potions master? I've heard of you." He offered his hand. "You can call me James."

The potions master's eyes narrowed slightly at the name, but he didn't comment on it. "Lucius seems to think your abilities are worth mine. Are they?"

"The people I've worked with seem happy enough. I myself have never been satisfied with my own skill. I sell my abilities for knowledge."

"I see," Severus drawled. The potions master turned to his friend. "Lucius." That one name seemed to convey to the named man all the information of an entire sentence. Severus turned back to Harry. "Your work for mine. That was the offer. You enhance my body, and I'll teach you the basics of the mind arts."

"Deal."

Seeing that everything was in place, Lucius clapped his hands together. "Good, good. Mr. James, I do believe that is everything I owe you, correct?" Harry nodded. The copies of the books were safely in his bag. "And now you have an Occlumency and Legilimency instructor. Since that is all, I'll be on my way."

"Lord Malfoy, one moment," Harry said. "If you want or need anything else, you know where to get in touch with me. And... I take it you've heard of the _other_ rumors about me? You _did_ track down Jacob, after all."

Lucius frowned. "I do believe I know what you're referring to, yes."

"It's true. Every word of it, and then some."

Lucius swallowed his nerves. "I see. Well, I best be off, then." He hurried through the emerald flames, which turned orange upon his departure.

Harry turned to Severus. "Now, if I understand correctly, one needs a teacher for the mind arts, not a book. I suppose that means you'll have to enter my mind, correct?"

"I will."

"Well then..." All six of his eyes focused intently on Snape's two. His shadow slowly spread around the perimeter of the room. His body started growing, thickening, and elongating. As he rapidly filled the space in the room, as his tail started thrashing about, he menacingly asked, "What can you find out about my shadow?"

Snape barely had time to react. Darkness engulfed him.

* * *

Severus Snape had, throughout his life, had nothing but terrible and terrifying masters. First, it was his father, the drunk and abusive muggle. Then it was the violent and murderous Dark Lord. _Then_ it was the manipulative old man who people thought of as the Leader of the Light, but was still a terrifyingly powerful wizard.

And now it was the giant demon pinning him to the floor of his own office.

How Severus hated his life.

The feelings he felt right now, aside from the crushing force of both dread and a literal cerberus-sized paw, confused him. He knew what the imperious curse felt like, and he knew what other mind-manipulating and memory modifying curses felt like. What had just happened was like _none_ of that. He'd blacked out, and when he'd woken up, he was definitely not the same man he'd been when he'd fallen unconscious.

And somehow, he couldn't find it in himself to care. He literally couldn't — he'd searched! Not a single part of his being cared that he'd just had his allegiances forcefully changed, and _that_ scared him more than the mouth full of giant, dagger-sized teeth hovering inches above his head. In fact, he was so unconcerned about the teeth and the hot, rotten breath billowing across his face that he easily mustered up the courage to shout, "Get off of me!"

The behemoth chuckled. "Well, Severus Snape?"

"Well what? Are you worried that I might be mad at you, master? Don't worry; I am." Severus stood and brushed down his robes. "That is a god-awful power you have."

The behemoth shrank down to a much more manageable size, though he was still the size of a large lion. If Snape were to hazard a guess, he'd even go so far as to assume the demon was just as tough as a _nemean_ lion.

"When I set about acquiring it, I meant to control and weaponize shadows. I never intended for it to manifest as controlling _people_ through their shadows." The demon chuckled. "Now, a little test... I have yet to capture a man so versed in the mind arts, so, I must see if it works." From the little bag that was still strapped to the demon's back, a piece of paper floated down. "I know there is a truth serum, but this is my way. It'll tell me if you're telling the truth. Hold this for me."

Severus took the paper without hesitation. It was a laminated sheet of muggle paper, but under the plastic, there were runes drawn in blood. He could feel the power radiating off them, worming their way into his mind.

"What is your greatest regret?"

"That I betrayed Lily Potter," Severus replied immediately. It pained him deeply to say, and yet... His thoughts weren't entirely clear on the matter, but he felt _lighter_ for saying that. His eyes turned towards the demon.

It was silent, staring at him. Its face, so alien to him, was unreadable. Snape elaborated, "There was a prophesy. I took it to the dark lord. Only after the fact did I learn that it referred to my once best-friend, her awful husband, and their innocent son. And now, Lily Potter is dead and her son is Merlin-knows-where, and I'm alone. _Again._ " He sighed. "But that's life."

The demon looked away. "Things would have been so much better if she'd lived..."

"You knew Lily?"

The beast shrank down, resuming a vaguely humanoid form once more. His robes formed out of his skin. "I know _of_ her. I know the effects she's _indirectly_ had on my life. But no, I don't really know Lily Potter at all. I wonder what she'd think of me, if she'd gotten the chance to know me?"

Harry shook his head. "Well, enough of that. I have what I need." He took the paper back from Snape. "When and where should we meet? We have a deal, after all."

"Snape Residence, Spinner's End. That's my floo address. This saturday at noon."

"Then that is where we'll meet." He turned. Spotting floo powder by the fireplace, he took a handful for himself. "And Snape? If you'd lied, the lie paper would have exploded. I'm glad you didn't try and deceive me."

As the demon vanished through the emerald flames, Snape shuddered. Yes, he had the _worst_ masters.

* * *

Harry stepped through the floo, once more stumbling and falling. He once more hoisted himself up and dusted off the ashes left by his least favorite way of traveling. At least Snape wasn't in the room at the moment to see him.

He looked around. The room looked much more muggle in style than he'd expected. It was also quite drab — not that his own home was much better.

Snape walked in a moment later, a teakettle floating behind him. He poured two cups.

"You made tea?"

"For myself," Severus replied, "but there happens to be enough to share. It helps clear the mind."

He sat down at the table and Harry took the remaining seat opposite him. "You didn't strike me as a tea drinker," Harry said as he took his own cup.

"Contrary to _popular opinion,_ I don't eat babies, nor do I eat the hearts of virgins," Snape droned.

"There's no difference between a virgin's heart and a non-virgin's. They taste exactly the same. But I draw the line at eating babies," Harry replied. He too a sip of his tea.

"I do hope that was a joke."

"It wasn't."

Snape sighed. "And here I was hoping for a _decent_ master for once."

"I'm not going to eat you." He took another sip of his drink. "And you were right; this tea does help clear the mind."

Snape took a sip of his own. "I am a potions master," he replied, as if it answered everything on its own. And in a way, it did; Snape made his own tea blend.

"Well, tell me about the body you want."

"My dream body is one that doesn't have to deal with _idiotic dunderheads_ all the time, but failing that..."

* * *

Like all his patients, Harry gave Severus a few minutes to explore his new body. But rather than the standard bodily enhancements, Severus ended up with something a bit more experimental.

In the same manner as some of the demon's most trusted shades, Severus could transform into an ethereal shadow form, one that could hide in and move through shadows undetected. But unlike Harry's shades, he wasn't confined to using it just while inside Harry's shadow and could use it in _any_ shadow. At night, since night itself was nothing more than the Earth's shadow, Snape was nigh untouchable.

Harry did not make the ability as efficient as his own shades' ability, as he didn't want Severus abusing it too much. But, even diminished, it was still a powerful tool.

Snape, far more pleased with the ability than he was willing to show, agreed that it was well worth the effort it would take to teach Harry Occlumency and Legilimency.

That plan fell apart almost immediately the first time Snape tried to enter Harry's mind. The instant he identified the "Demon Surgeon" as "Harry Potter," things got messy.

"You cannot be Potter!" Snape growled.

"That's a first." Harry shrugged. "And I'm still not convinced that I'm the real Harry Potter. Who abandons a hero to an abusive family and never checks up on them?"

"If Dumbledore placed you there, then he knew what was happening," Snape said. "I just find it hard to believe he didn't mention _this_."

"Maybe because he has the real boy-who-lived tucked away elsewhere?" Harry countered.

"That was definitely Petunia. I would recognize her anywhere."

"And I could a changeling left by fairies."

Snape shuddered at the thought. "Harry Potter, a fae child? That is calamity I pray never happens."

Harry reclined in his seat. "I'm still not convinced that I'm the same Harry Potter you wizards obsess over."

"That would be a blessing. The Harry Potter those sheep believe you are would be an insufferable, arrogant prat several orders of magnitude worse than James Potter," Snape replied.

"You're the second person I've known to personally insult James. Petunia called him a devil of a man, and not in a flattering way." Harry fidgeted slightly. "Was he really that bad?"

"He and his gang tormented me relentlessly at school. His friend, Sirius Black, nearly got me killed by tricking me into going into the same building as a werewolf during the full moon. James Potter stopped me, but only to keep his friends out of trouble, and went right back to taunting me afterwards. He drove away anyone who I tried to befriend and stole from me the woman I had fallen in love with." He'd started out with his tone calm and flat, but by the time he finished, his mouth was dripping with so much venom that a snake would be green with envy.

"So exactly like my cousin," Harry replied.

"Your cousin?"

"I killed him."

"The only reason I didn't kill Potter was Lily."

"You loved her."

"With all my heart."

The two fell into a comfortable silence. It didn't last long, and soon enough they were back to work.

* * *

His quiet search for Remus Lupin had ceased once Harry had learned that he was part of the group that had bullied Snape as a child. In Harry's strange logic, bullying ranked higher than murder on his mental list of amoral acts.

And though his search was no longer happening, his experimentation was still in full swing. Malfoy's book, plus several others, and unlocked several new avenues of blood magic for him to pursue.

Additionally, Harry learned more things about his own body. He learned that his bite was contagious, but created lesser versions of him that were smaller, weaker, and lacked any of his runic enhancements. Not wanting to father an entirely new race just yet, he quickly devoured the man he'd tested his bite on.

That taught him something else. Two somethings, actually. First, don't make messes you're not prepared to clean up, and second, that while absorbing anyone increased his maximum size by a little bit, absorbing a demon of his creation made him grow a lot. That didn't really help him much, but Harry figured it was good to know.

But by now, people were starting to get suspicious. Street thugs and criminals could vanish without anyone batting an eye, but when a lot of them vanished, especially people with families, the community got worried. And even with his two captured Aurors in the force helping to divert attention and letting him know when to stay low, the force of the community's will was something powerful.

And his shadow-stealing routine was close to being discovered as well. It forever left his shades' shadows darker and bigger than they should have been — not by much, but an observant individual could pick them out of a crowd if they knew what to look for. While undeniably practical, that gave his technique a worse flaw than having the dark mark on your _arm._ Harry knew he'd have to pick his targets carefully from now on.

But of all things, an escape rout of sorts came in the form of a letter, a _Hogwarts Acceptance Letter_. Harry was honestly quite surprised to see it, having expected it not to come at all.

That it was addressed to him, in his blood-warded home, where _nobody_ knew Harry Potter lived, was a bit frightening, to say the least.

But Harry's curiosity overwhelmed him. Grabbing a pen, he wrote out his reply. Once he was satisfied, he folded it up. One apparition and a galleon spent later, and a rented owl was carrying his reply off to Hogwarts.

* * *

 _Dear Headmistress McGonagall,_

 _My name is Harry Potter. While I would love to attend Hogwarts, I have a number of issues that need to be addressed._

 _First, I'm living on a rather tight budget right now, and I doubt I could even afford most of my supplies, let alone the cost of tuition (if that's applies here; the letter was rather vague)._

 _That leads to my second, and arguably much more important problem: between being abandoned at my aunt's house, being taken to an orphanage, and then accidentally making everyone at the orphanage forget about my existence, I have absolutely no proof of my identity. Supposedly, if the stories about "Harry Potter" are in any way accurate, I have some measure of money left to me from my parents. But without a way to prove I am me (and even I'm starting to doubt that), I can't access it._

 _I don't know what, if anything, you can do to help. I would love to learn at Hogwarts, but I don't think it will be happening anytime soon._

 _Regards,_

 _Harry James Potter (?)_

* * *

Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall scanned the letter once, then twice more after her initial reading. It just didn't make sense. She knew _vaguely_ about the orphanage part — Dumbledore'd had a panic attack when the blood wards on Harry's home fell — but everything else told her that something was dreadfully wrong.

The Scottish woman stood from her desk. _**"ALBUS!"**_

Oh, they were going to have _words._

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was panicking. Very few people, save for those who were extremely close to him, would have even been able to tell he was panicking — such was the quality of his calm mask — but panicking he was. The letter McGonagall had showed him scared him.

He called out to his familiar, and in a flash of phoenix fire, the two of them vanished from the castle. They reappeared at an orphanage in downtown London, Dumbledore's charms stopping the muggles from noticing his otherwise quite dramatic arrival. Quickly, he entered the orphanage where he'd thought Harry Potter had been living since that incident.

When he'd asked to speak to Harry, the receptionist merely gave him a blank stare, and when he'd asked to see if they'd ever had a child named Harry Potter, the receptionist came back with nothing.

But Dumbledore knew that Harry had been here; though he hadn't spoken with the lad, he _had_ seen him and had placed defensive wards around the boy's room, wards that would keep him hidden from prying eyes. Safety in anonymity had been the headmaster's plan. Unfortunately, that had backfired, as whatever had happened here hadn't set off Dumbledore's alarm wards, and thus the privacy wards had kept him from finding out through other means.

Dumbledore raced to Harry's room, only to stop, puzzled. Why had he come here?

Between fighting Grindelwald and Voldemort, the Headmaster had developed a strong sense of when he'd been manipulated by mind magic. His occlumency shields kicked in, shaking him into awareness enough to realize that he'd just been hit with a _memory_ ward, and a particularly potent one at that.

Focusing his awareness on his sense of the ambient magic, Dumbledore found the source of the effect; the door to the room in front of him. He immediately realized that the wards were designed to attack anyone who looked at the door itself.

Dumbledore cast a spell, one that was used exclusively for situations like this, to stop visual magic from targeting him. A black film spread over his eyes, blinding him, before a tiny illusion appeared inside his eyes. The illusion, the surroundings as seen from the perspective of a spot on the tip of his nose, let him navigate even though he was technically blind at the moment.

What he saw stunned him.

There was blood on the door, blood that formed a wide variety of runes. Some were familiar, but others were totally alien to him. And crude as they might have been, they made a very formidable defense. Had he not been such a skilled occlumens, he would have walked away without even caring about why he'd come in the first place. Worse, if he was reading the compulsion correctly, it would have forced him to destroy any evidence of Harry Potter's existence.

This was _not_ the work of a bout of accidental magic gone wrong. This was the work of hostile force that had kidnapped Harry Potter. Worse, this was the work of a blood mage that could target minds.

Harry's letter hadn't sounded like he'd been kidnapped, nor had it made a mention of living with anyone in particular, but when memory manipulation was in play, nothing was ever as it seemed.

Dumbledore cursed silently. Just the other day, he'd read in the Daily Prophet about the latest disappearances. He was concerned that Voldemort had already managed a way to come back to life, but this was something entirely different. A chill ran down Dumbledore's spine.

Did they have _another_ dark lord to deal with?

Dumbledore prayed they didn't. Fearful of what the future held, Dumbledore began a closer examination of the wards to better see what they were dealing with.

He didn't expect the flames.

* * *

"Dumbledore, what's this about?" Sprout asked. "Why have you called us here?"

"It seems," Dumbledore began, choosing his words carefully, "That a future student of ours, has been kidnapped by a dark wizard skilled in memory manipulation."

Gasps rang out through the gathered crowd of teachers, save for Snape, who just raised an eyebrow. McGonagall exclaimed, "Albus, how do you know?"

"It was that letter." She knew which one the headmaster was speaking of. "Harry received his Hogwarts Letter the other day, and wrote back in reply. He said some troubling things, and when I went to where I believed him to be living, I found something quite frightening. Someone had placed a memory trap on his room, one that would make any who saw it forget Harry's existence and attempt to erase physical evidence. That is most certainly _not_ the work of a young, untrained child. Wherever he is, Harry Potter's memories have been tampered with to the point that he is unaware of the danger he is in!"

"About that, headmaster, that memory trap..." Snape replied, also choosing his words carefully. "Describe it. If it is what I think it is, I might actually know who set it..."

"It was a runic array drawn in blood on the door to Harry's room. When I tried to examine it, the entire room was instantly engulfed in flames, destroying everything within beyond what the mending charm could ever hope to fix."

Snape nodded. "That sounds just like him. He was always paranoid people would steal his work." He stood from his chair. "Albus, you are overreacting."

"Overreacting!" Minerva exclaimed, unknowingly echoing most of the staff's thoughts. "This is a dark wizard using blood magic! How is that in any way an _over_ reaction?"

"Because the wizard in question is neither a Death Eater nor the second coming of You-Know-Who. Allow me a few days to arrange things quietly and I'll have your precious Boy-Who-Lived back and in one piece."

"Thank Merlin. And who is this wizard?" Dumbledore asked.

"He goes by the pseudonym _James_. I do not know his real name." Severus turned to leave. "As time is of the essence, I will be off."

"Good luck, Severus."

Snape scoffed. With a swirl of his cloak, he strolled out of the room.

As soon as he'd left, Filius Flitwick commented, "Well, as far as emergencies go, this one seems like it will be resolved rather quickly."

Albus could only hope so.

* * *

"O'Rielly."

"Snape."

"I need to speak with the master; it's rather urgent."

"I'll let him know." Jacob pressed a finger to the tiny runic cluster carved behind his earlobe. A second later, he spoke aloud. "Master, Snape is here to see you. It's urgent, he says." Jacob listened to something only he could hear. "Alright." He dropped his finger.

Jacob's shadow suddenly stretched and contorted, then peeled up off the ground like it was paper. It grew thickness and color spread across the emerging figure until in a second later, the Demon Surgeon was standing before them.

"That's new," Severus commented.

"I just invented it last week," Harry replied, his voice even more raspy and alien than usual. "Only works using the shadows of objects and people I've enchanted, but it's still pretty useful. Anyway, what's up?"

"Dumbledore knows about 'James.' He thinks _James_ kidnapped _Harry_. He went to the orphanage and saw your blood runes there."

Harry's six eyes blinked. "Wait, really? I'd forgotten about those, to be honest. What happened?"

"He nearly lost his memory of you. His occlumency protected him."

"I thought those would have faded by now. Did they burst into flames?"

"Yes."

"Ah. And because of them, he thinks I kidnapped myself?"

"He thinks the dark wizard using the pseudonym James kidnapped and brainwashed Harry Potter. I don't believe he's connected James to the Demon Surgeon yet." Severus snorted dismissively. "And now, thanks to my attempts to prevent him from launching a full-out manhunt for you — and _you're welcome,_ by the way — he expects me to rescue Harry from James and deliver you to him."

"Bloody hell... Thank you, Severus, but bloody hell."

Severus looked at Jacob, who was leaning against the stone wall of the narrow alleyway. "Now's the time to pack up. You wouldn't have been able to easily practice your craft while playing wizard at Hogwarts anyway, but now's as good a time as any to pack up."

"This was bound to happen anyway," Jacob remarked. "It's a good thing you got Snape to help cover your arse."

"Definitely," Harry agreed.

"Course, it's also a good reminder to you to keep your _own_ arse covered. Like, once, I ran into this hag, and... Wait, no, you're just a kid. Point is, if you're going to do something that could get you in trouble, like _everything_ you do, do it so that they can't prove it was you."

Harry tucked away that advice for future reference. It may have been obvious, but it was worth stating anyway. "Yeah, I will." Harry turned to Snape. "How long do I have to pack everything up?"

"A few days. There isn't a specific time frame, but faster would be better. I also want to work on your mental shields a bit; if Dumbledore sees me in your memories, this will all unravel rather quickly."

Harry cocked his head. "Would he really use legilimency on me? A _kid?_ "

"He thinks you've been brainwashed."

"So? How do we hide this from him?"

"Hey," Jacob interjected. "Just a thought, and I have no idea if this would work, but what if you made runes to protect your mind?" He waved his hands around a bit. "I mean, you've made bodies better, why not minds?"

Harry immediately withdrew his research notebook from his ever-present bag. He flipped through it and read through some of his own notes. Then he flipped to one of the infinite blank pages at the end and started writing. "That could work. I'd need to know a bit more about the mechanics of legilimency first, but I could see this working."

Snape's eyebrow twitched upwards ever so slightly, while his ever-present sneer faded a bit. "A blood magic defense against legilimency? Men would kill for such a thing."

"Hmm..." Harry replied, not looking up from his writing. "It's lucky that I don't need too."

"Indeed."

* * *

Harry, human once more, sighed in relief when Snape couldn't get into his mind, even when he was in human form. Snape, however, wasn't so calm or relieved.

"That doesn't _hurt?"_

Harry shook his head.

"Your mind is like a hurricane! How does that not _hurt?"_

"Because that isn't my mind," Harry replied. "It's a shell _around_ my mind." He scratched his head as he thought about how best to explain it. "A hurricane's actually a good analogy. There's a wall of chaotic 'thoughts' that swirl's around where my mind _should_ be, but in the eye, there's nothing. For lack of a better way to explain it, the storm kept you from 'looking' where my mind actually is."

"That was most unpleasant," Snape replied. His breath came heavy and ragged; it had taken him far more magic than he'd expected to fight that psychic storm.

"It _should_ , in theory, protect me from other mental intrusions, and it should help my Legilimency, too," Harry added. "Haven't tested that part yet, though."

"Are you ever worried that you might mess up?"

"The book _Blood Magicks_ taught me how to reverse my own work. It's _my_ blood and _my_ magic; it obeys _my_ will," Harry replied. "Just don't ask me to remove something from someone else, especially if it wasn't originally made by me, because the runes are powered by the host's magic, not mine."

"I see. Well, while it is frighteningly obvious that _something_ is defending your mind, your secrets _are_ safe enough," Severus remarked.

"Good. I'm all packed up." He held up a box the size of a deck of cards, which Snape recognized as a shrunken trunk. "The wards on my house have been removed and all the blood's been cleaned away. If you think I'm ready, then you can _return_ me to Dumbledore now," Harry spat. Between Snape, the denizens of Knockturn, and his own (admittedly limited) experience with the him, Harry didn't have a particularly good view of the headmaster. But while he was only mildly upset about having to end up under Dumbledore's control, Harry was far more upset about his reduced time and freedom to conduct his research.

It may have been inevitable, but that didn't mean Harry had to like it.

"Then we will go now." Severus said. He grabbed Harry's shoulder, wary of touching the demonic boy's skin. Then they apparated.


	4. Schooling

The Castle was, in Harry's opinion, really quite impressive looking. He just wondered why they had to appear all the way down the path, almost to Hogsmeade, instead of directly in the castle.

"There is an anti-apparition ward around the castle," Snape had explained when Harry had asked. "Plus, crossing through the main gates triggers the alert wards Dumbledore's monitoring. It is equivalent to knocking politely, and tells him that we are in no danger."

"Oh. I didn't know that."

Snape scoffed. "Make an effort to learn these sort of things so you do not blunder like an idiot into a trap."

"Thank you, Snape."

" _Professor_ Snape, boy," he corrected. "As of right now, I am your future teacher and you are my student. We do not know each other outside of this. You will treat me with respect. I may be your shade, but in here, I _must_ be your superior."

"How am I going to pay for Hogwarts anyway?"

"Hogwarts is a state sponsored school. There is no tuition. It would be criminal to not train children in how to control their magic. Otherwise, we'd have hundreds of living bombs unknowingly going about their days while risking the lives of everyone around them. Your own mother nearly killed her father during a temper tantrum when she was nine, and magical strength only grows with age."

"Oh." Harry frowned. "Okay, but how do I pay for the clothing and equipment. I have money from James, but I can't bloody well use that without people asking questions."

"That won't be an issue," Professor Snape replied. "Dumbledore would not let the Boy-Who-Lived go without. He will take care of it." He said nothing more on the matter. Harry was content to leave it at that.

"Blimey!" Harry turned. Walking towards the path was the largest man Harry had ever seen. The man, broad shouldered and nearly twelve feet tall before one considered how big his hair and thick coat made him look, trudged towards them. "Is that Harry Potter?"

"Err... yes? Who are you?"

"Well I suppose ya' wouldn't recognize me. You were only knee-high to a bowtrukle when I last saw you." The man finally reached them. He stuck out his gigantic hand. "Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts."

Harry shook the man's hand cordially.

"You gave us a right-good scare, that ya' did. We were all worried about ya."

"You were?"

Hagrid chuckled, but because of his size, it came out as what an ordinary man would consider a booming laugh. "Course we were." He smiled. "Heh, put on some glasses, and you'd look just like James. But those eyes, those are Lily's eyes."

Harry glanced at Snape.

The potions master remarked, "He means your _father_ , not the man you were with."

"I was actually wondering about the eyes. You said you were friends with my mom. I thought it odd that you didn't mention that."

"They don't look nearly the same in the _shadows._ " The emphasis on the word told Harry everything he needed to know.

"I see."

"Come along now. Dumbledore is waiting for us." Snape continued walking. Harry immediately followed behind.

"Don't be a stranger," Hagrid called out as they departed.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Harry commented, "He's not entirely human, is he?"

"A Half-Giant."

"I could smell it in his blood, if his size weren't already obvious." Harry's teeth turned shark-like. His shadow writhed eagerly. "He didn't smell as appetizing as you do, and you've got the stench of potions on you."

Severus didn't say anything, but upon a mental review, he realized that the hospital wing was most assuredly low on some of the _fouler-smelling_ potions. He would have to spend a good, _long_ time fixing that. Perhaps he'd have to skip showers to save enough time for his work.

* * *

Dumbledore met them in the entrance hallway. "Severus! You're back. And you've brought Mr. Potter with you!"

"Yes. I said I would."

"Was there any trouble?" Dumbledore asked. _Was there anything I should know about?_

"None at all. James seemed rather disgruntled that _you_ were, in his own words, 'sticking your nose where it didn't belong.' I believe he plans to leave the country sometime soon." Dumbledore looked intrigued at that, and the slightest bit pleased as well. "He relinquished Potter without a fuss, citing that 'his work was done.' If that is all, Headmaster..."

"You've done a fine job, Severus. Thank you. I will be taking Mr. Potter off your hands."

Severus sneered, then turned and swept away, his cloak billowing behind him. Harry called out, "Bye, Professor Snape." The professor only quickened his gait.

Harry turned back to the headmaster. Dumbledore smiled; rather than being a grandfatherly look, in Harry's mind, it was the smile of someone who wanted something while trying to look like they didn't. He didn't know what a grandfather's smile was supposed to look like, anyway.

"Harry, my boy, it's good to see you safe and sound."

"I was safe with Mr. James," Harry said.

The old wizard shook his head. "Mr. James was a _dark_ wizard who twists people's minds. I went to check the orphanage you lived at and found a powerful curse left by him that made people forget you."

"Wait... _Mr. James_ did that? But I thought..." Harry bit his own tongue and used the pain to call up tears. "I thought _I_ did that... Mr. James was so nice..."

"The darkest of wizards are often the greatest at manipulating others. That goes doubly true for Mr. James. If your letter was any indication, I think he changed your memories so that you would willingly go with him."

"But why?"

"That, I do not know," the headmaster admitted. "But it was unlikely that it was out of the goodness of his heart. He used blood magic, one of the most _foul_ branches of magic in the world."

"He never hurt me," Harry insisted. Despite the tears in his eyes, he found he was having quite a lot of fun with this.

"And would a man like that let you remember that he'd hurt you?" Dumbledore asked. "Maybe he did, but maybe he didn't. How about we go visit Madam Pomfrey, our school's healer. She can make sure you're all alright."

Harry sniffed. He hoped he wasn't putting it on too thickly. A part of him wanted to just eat the man and be done with it, while another part wanted to take Dumbledore's shadow. But considering the knowledge at stake if he messed it up, Harry restrained himself.

' _Stupid human headmaster,'_ Harry thought. Out loud, he said, "Okay."

"Excellent. Once we get that taken care of, we can get some lunch, then I'll show you to where you'll be sleeping."

* * *

Deep in the Hogwarts kitchen, thirty house-elves huddled together in fear of the dark presence that had just entered the castle. They could feel it, for it was on the floor above and radiated a bloodthirsty aura that chilled them to the bone.

One brave elf, Flipsy, dared a look at the _Menu_ , the self-updating, sorted list that showed what the occupants of Hogwarts were craving, and how much. To her horror, two entries appeared at the bottom: Humans and House-Elves.

She screamed.

The house-elves' saw what had terrified the poor girl. They'd been bracing themselves to do the unthinkable, when another elfe noted something else: Shepherd's Pie and Treacle Tart had also both moved up the list.

The dark one liked _normal_ food. They were saved!

* * *

"Good afternoon, Poppy," the headmaster greeted as he escorted Harry into the hospital wing.

The nurse, whose nose had been buried in a medical textbook (which Harry found himself wanting a peek at), popped her head up. "Albus. Good afternoon. And who is... Harry Potter?! Severus found him?"

"That he did. Would you please check Mr. Potter over for anything that seems out of place? I think a _full_ checkup seems in order."

"A full one?" Her eyes glanced at the visibly healthy boy. "Of course. I'll call when I'm through, Headmaster."

"Or if you think you need a second pair of eyes." His smile widened a smidge. "Thank you, Poppy."

"Come now, Mr. Potter," the mediwitch said, motioning towards one of the many empty beds.

Harry nervously sat on one of the beds. Unlike with Dumbledore before, this time his expression was genuine. He had no idea how some of those medical diagnostic charms would work on him. He'd picked up a few himself, such as the one that made flesh invisible so the caster could see the bone. Others, he had no clue what they did and no clue what they were telling the mediwitch.

Occasionally, Madam Pomfrey asked him a seemingly random question, or frowned at some detail that he couldn't see. Ultimately, however, the mediwitch lowered her wand without finding anything too noteworthy. "Well, Mr. Potter, I can tell you didn't eat enough when you were younger and you could stand to eat a few more vegetables now, but I have to say you're as healthy as a hippogriff. Oddly, you seem to have been born missing one of your vertebrae — your back bones. It won't hurt you at all, you'll just never be _quite_ as tall as you could have been."

"I'm missing a back bone?"

"Don't worry about it, dear. People have extra bits or missing bits all the time, and nobody ever really notices," the nurse replied. "I have an extra toe, for example. It wouldn't be hard to remove it, but I really don't mind it."

Harry grinned, though not for the reason she suspected. He felt glad to be in the clear. "That's neat. I like knowing how people work."

"Do you?" Madam Pomfrey smiled warmly. "I teach a healing class on the weekends. It's usually for the older students, but you're welcome to sit in on the lessons if you want."

"That sounds fun," Harry eagerly replied. One of the things he'd found most limiting in his research on body modification was information on how the body worked. He could brute-force a lot of effects, but knowledge made things so much easier.

"It is. Now, let me go fetch Albus and let him know that you're all good to go. Oh, and you'll have to come back later for your vaccinations, but that will happen during the first week of school. Now, wait here just a tick. I'll be right back."

The mediwitch left the room at a brisk walk. Harry looked out the window and let out a long breath. That had been far closer than he would have liked.

* * *

When Dumbledore had come back, he'd immediately escorted Harry to his office. But after that, the headmaster had sat Harry down in one of the chairs and then slipped into the back room. According to the aged man, there were some things he needed to put together in order to help get Harry's proper memories back.

Seeing how Harry's memories hadn't actually been tampered with, the demonic boy was a little concerned about what would happen to him.

"Or he could have just put me on your head." Harry looked towards the wall, where the voice had seemingly come from, then up to the highest shelf. There, staring at him, was an animated hat. "I could have done the job just fine, but no..."

"You?"

"Yes, me!" the hat exclaimed. "I was Godric Gryffindor's hat. I already had many abilities before the founders improved me into what I am today. But what does Dumbledore use me for? Nothing but sorting, that's what. Put me on, boy. I'll have you fixed up in a heartbeat."

"I'm fine, thank you."

The hat paused, as if considering. Then, "I'll tell Dumbledore about your other self if you don't," the hat smoothly replied.

Harry felt ice in his veins. His shadow twisted angrily under his feet. "What did you say?!" he growled.

"The castle sensed what you were the moment you entered. I am part of the castle. _Put me on._ We need to talk."

A flick of Harry's fingers and a twitch of his magic sent the hat flipping his way. He caught the old cap out of the air and plopped it onto his head. Instantly, he could feel the hat slide into his mind. _Interesting defenses, Mr. Potter. Useless against me, yes, but I'm one-of-a-kind. I do admit, I was lying when I said I would tell. Even though you are not a student here, you will be one come this September. I do not reveal the secrets of Hogwarts's students. But, we_ _ **do**_ _need to talk._

"Then talk."

 _The charter for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry clearly states that the school is to help_ _ **all**_ _students reach their maximum potential, whatever that may be. It does not discriminate on race, blood, gender, or_ _ **humanity.**_ _You are a student, thus you will be helped. While the staff would argue against that if they ever discovered what you are — and more importantly,_ _ **what you are becoming**_ _— the magic of the school will still aid you._

"What do you mean, 'what I am' and 'what I'm becoming?'" Harry asked.

 _You see yourself as a demon. You are_ _ **not**_ _a demon; you are a human being with a very frightening power._

"I am one!" Harry insisted.

 _You are not. You are still human. However, you are_ _ **close**_ _to becoming a true demon, terrifyingly close. But, there is more than one way of becoming a demon, and you are teetering on the edge of the absolute worst of them. The seventh set of seven would kill the person you are. But, do not despair. So long as you do not complete the final set, you have time._

"Then what should I do?" Harry asked.

 _What you have always done when you've been faced with a question: research and experimentation. I caution you here that much of this experimentation must be done entirely in your head. Examine yourself. Understand the magics you find and decide how you would react to their effects. Pick the option that helps you the most,_ the hat instructed.

 _Hogwarts's library is the best in the world, but people often fail to understand why. The library changes, adapting to the needs of those who wander its shelves. Someone who is only concerned with_ _ **why**_ _and not_ _ **how**_ _would find countless theoretical tomes and few practical ones. You, on the other hand, find more satisfaction out of deriving the theory from the practical examples. You will find exactly what you need in that maze of books, so long as you look hard enough. You will need a professor to write you a pass to the restricted section, though._

The hat twitched on Harry's head, looking around. _And before Dumbledore comes back, two more things: First, the Library isn't the only resource Hogwarts has to offer, nor the only one that adapts to your needs. You will have to find those on your own, however. And second, Hogwarts prides itself on being able to satisfy the physical needs of its students as well as their mental ones. There is a room down in the dungeons—_ A mental map appeared in Harry's head, creating the sensation that he'd walked that path many times before. _—where you can go to stretch, so to speak. Hogwarts and Hogsmeade both keep a supply of live goats and pigs for the more bloodthirsty members of the community. I can arrange for one to be delivered there each week you are here. We can't have you eating the students and staff, now can we?_

"Thank you. That would be great."

 _Now, I hear Albus approaching. I am going to force you to cry. Take me off your head as soon as you feel the tears and play along._

A second later, his eyes were positively gushing. He sniffed, his nose suddenly quite runny. Harry did what he was told and yanked the hat off his head.

Just then, Albus returned, a massive, silver contraption floating behind him. He paused when he saw the state Harry was in and what he was clutching.

"Albus," the hat stated, "I was able to free Mr. Potter from James's machinations."

"You were?" the aged headmaster asked in surprise.

"Yes. I am a part of this school. I have power and resources to draw upon, and I was able to undo what has been done to him with far more ease than you ever could have."

"And Harry? How is he?" Albus asked.

"The memories that were hidden from him were painful, yes, but they are ultimately personal. If Harry wishes to speak with anyone about them, that is his choice. But I can say with certainty that this James individual did far more good for Mr. Potter than his own family ever did. Do not press the boy on the matter."

The hat wiggled in Harry's grasp, turning to face him. "As for you, once you come to terms with those memories of yours, I expect a long and interesting future for you."

Dumbledore set the contraption down on his desk. "Well, that was much easier than I expected. Come, Mr. Potter. Let me show you to where you will be sleeping until school starts and you are sorted."

"Ah," the sorting hat interjected. "I knew I'd forgotten something. Harry, your mind is quite unlike any I've seen in a long time. Here's a question I want you to think on: would you chose to gain power or knowledge?" The hat bobbed its pointed tip. "Until next time."

* * *

After getting shown his room, then eating lunch with the professors (he'd rather eat them, but the shepherd's pie was good too), Harry was allowed to roam the halls and explore as he pleased. Harry took the opportunity to first locate the library — the hat's words had scared him too much for that to not be top priority — and then went around locating the other interesting places he could find.

Unbeknownst to any who were observing him, Harry was steadily making his way down to a very particular room. Upon entering a rather barren hallway down near the dungeons, one devoid of magic paintings, statues, or suits of armor, Harry located an off-colored brick in the wall. As the memory given to him by the hat instructed, he tapped the brick thrice. Double checking to make sure nobody was looking, he walked through the wall as if it were air.

There was a dimly lit corridor on the other side, though where the light came from, he couldn't tell. Behind him, there was the illusory wall, yes, but there was also a thick, heavy door inscribed with the phrase "close me."

After examining the door and finding that it locked from the inside, Harry closed it. It latched shut with surprisingly little noise, while the bolt slid into place of its own accord. Harry continued down the hallway.

He entered the room at the end. Calling it large would have been an understatement; there were cathedrals smaller than this place. The floor was scratched with countless claw-marks, and despite the generally clean look, the scent of old blood still hung in the air.

"The hat said you'd be coming." There was a single painting on the wall, encased within a cage of iron bars. In it, there stood a woman. Half of her face looked like a savage wolf's while the other half looked like a beautiful maiden. "It's been decades since anyone came down here."

"Who are you?"

"Call me Lupa. I'm not a painting of a real person, nor do I have a _real_ personality. I am just the voice of this room."

"Do many rooms have paintings like you?"

The wolf-woman grinned. "Far more than people realize. As for me, I am the controller of this room. The hat said you needed space and you needed prey. Here, I can give you both."

"Thank you."

"Are you hungry?"

Harry almost said no, that he'd already had lunch. But he stopped himself. He'd never really eaten a goat or a pig before. For that matter, he'd never really killed like the beast he was. Everything and everyone he'd eaten in his demon form had always been eaten through his skin. "Sure. Could I try a goat?"

There was a crack of displaced air, followed by the bleat of an annoyed animal. Harry grinned at the goat, his mouth stretching unnaturally wide. His body rippled as the change overtook him. He let it go, growing as big and ferocious as his body wanted too.

When his paws hit the ground, they shook the room with a massive boom. The goat, startled, bolted away as fast as it could. Laughing like a hyena, Harry lunged after it.

The chase was on.

* * *

The demon lounged on the ground, curled up around himself. With one of his claws, he picked at the bits of bone stuck in his teeth.

"The hat wasn't lying when it said you were big," Lupa commented. For a painting supposedly without a personality, it was awfully chatty. Whereas before the painting was nearly as tall as Harry was, now Harry could cover the entire thing with a single paw.

His tail swished lazily behind him, stirring up significant air currents in the enclosed room. "It's been awhile since I fully let go like this," he remarked. "It feels good."

"I'm glad I could help," Lupa said. "Now, while this room will always be open to you — unless it's currently being used by another student with similar needs — I suggest you not linger in here more than necessary. Others might look for you. The nature of this room _must_ remain secret so as to protect those who use it. But you can bring others in with you, especially those who might have need of this room. The last lycanthrope to come to Hogwarts never knew of this place, as he was attacked after having already been sorted by the hat."

Harry nodded and said his thanks. Shifting back to human form — an increasingly unpleasant experience — he made his way out of the room and into the dungeons of Hogwarts.

* * *

A painting in the Hogwarts kitchens, the sole painting in the room, one of a woman reclining on a massive pile of fruit, scoffed as she received an update from Hogwarts itself. The panicking elves in front of her now made a lot more sense, but at the same time, was now far more unnecessary.

"House-elves!" she called out sweetly. Almost in unison, the little creatures swiveled their heads to look at her. "That 'dark one' you've been so worried about? The sorting hat and Madam Lupa have taken care of him; he will not be a problem. Treat him as you would a normal student."

There was a great sigh of relief as almost every elf in the room let out a long breath.

"But he can transform into a beast big enough to swallow a human man whole, so do be careful around him, won't you?"

... and they were back to panicking again.

* * *

It had taken a while, but Harry finally managed to track down Snape. The man was in his potions lab, brewing with several cauldrons at once, such that he seemed to be dancing between them to keep them all going. Such graceful movements seemed to clash with everything Harry knew about the man's personality, and yet there Severus was.

Snape's focused energy reminded Harry a bit of himself when he started to really get going with his blood magic projects. And while Harry could respect Snape for his dedication to his craft, the stink his potions were putting out was _horrific._

Harry retreated as fast as he could. Out in the hallway, he pulled out a sheet of paper from his bag and his special pen; it was a muggle ballpoint enchanted with — among other things — the ability to write with the user's blood, pulling it right out of the veins.

Harry drew the outline of a small set of runes, then pressed the pen hard against the paper. Blood poured out and filled the outline exactly. Satisfied, Harry framed his intent and pushed his magic into the paper. The blood dried instantly.

Holding the paper up, he walked back into the potions lab. This time, the odors didn't bother him at all. Harry smiled; for an impromptu air-freshening charm, it worked better than he'd expected. "Hello, Professor."

"Potter." The professor didn't look away from his many potions, but did at least acknowledge Harry's presence.

"I originally came to ask you something, but I figured you needed something like this more." Harry held up the blood-charmed paper. "Fresh air. Those fumes _can't_ be good for you."

"The bubblehead charm is perfectly effective," Snape replied. As if to prove his point, some of the more colorful fumes swirled around his head, visibly deflected by some invisible barrier.

Harry shrugged. "At least with this, the stink won't cling to you so badly."

Snape's arm slowed momentarily. The potions master hoped Harry hadn't caught it, but that was not the case.

"Oh?" Harry's shark-like grin returned full-force. "So that's what your game is. You want to stink yourself up so I won't want to eat you."

"And, hypothetically, if I _wasn't_ brewing these medical potions for the hospital wing?"

"I would merely complain that I don't want to spend the next seven years of my life learning from a human who smells as foul as he looks," Harry replied. "I'm hurt that you'd think me so weak that I'd fall prey to the whims of my stomach. I've gone without food for long stretches before. I can do it just fine here. Besides, have you _tried_ the treacle tart? I'd rather eat that than you."

"Somehow, I can't decide if I should feel relieved or insulted that the man-eating monster prefers a pastry over me," Snape muttered. "Now, say what you came to say and leave me alone. I have to finish these potions."

Harry rolled his eyes. "The restricted section of the library — I assume you can make me a pass?"

"Not before term starts. You don't even have a wand yet; going in there would raise a lot of unwanted questions," Snape scoffed.

"As a matter of fact, I _do_ have a wand. I just don't like using it. It keeps trying to molest my magic," Harry groused. "But I see your point."

"That just raises even more questions." The potions master shook his head. He spent a moment adding a few ingredients to his potions and giving them the proper stirs, fully aware of the demon's eyes following him. "And as for the pass, I may be artificially loyal to you, but I am not giving away something like that for free. You will be scrubbing cauldrons for me in exchange. A day of scrubbing a week for a week-long pass."

Harry's fist clenched, but he swallowed his pride and frustration. "Fine. I shouldn't have expected anything else of you, _Professor_."

"A wise choice, Potter. Now, run along. I have work to do."

The demon left, his own cloak swishing in a pale imitation of Severus's own dramatic exits.


	5. Train

"Mr. Potter."

Harry looked up from the book his nose was buried in. The headmaster was standing beside his chair.

"While it pleases me greatly to see someone so entranced by the knowledge within books, I do believe it's high-time we get you your own school books and supplies." From his robe pocket, the headmaster pulled out a little metal key. "This is to your vault. Your parents didn't leave you nothing, after all, and between them, the well-wishers who bequeathed you money after Voldemort's fall, and the royalties from the books that have used your name, you are hardly as poor as you believed."

Harry took the key. He felt glad to have it, but silently questioned why Dumbledore had it in the first place. "Thank you, sir," he replied without making direct eye contact.

"Hagrid will be taking you to Diagon Alley to get your supplies. He has his own business to take care of, so you may as well go together," the headmaster explained. "He'll be waiting for you down in the entrance hall. You'd best be off."

Harry bookmarked his page and tucked the book into his bag. "Alright."

"Oh, and Harry?" Dumbledore added after he'd already taken a few steps. Harry paused and turned his head back. "Happy Birthday."

"Err... thanks." Harry blushed a bit, not really knowing how to respond to that. Nobody had ever wished him a happy birthday before.

"You're most welcome. Now, run along."

* * *

He and Hagrid had taken a portkey to Diagon Alley, which, like the floo, resulted in Harry landing on his face. The only way of getting around that hadn't disagreed with him yet was apparition, and even that wasn't entirely pleasant.

But aside from the rough start, the trip through Diagon was rather quick and easy. The goblins were, according to Hagrid, unusually respectful for them. The half-giant mused that it was probably because Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived, but Harry knew better.

After Harry had retrieved some of his gold and Hagrid had retrieved that little brown package from another vault (much to Harry's curiosity), they'd gone shopping.

The basic supplies were in-and-out affairs, with nothing much of note happening. At Madam Malkin's, he ran into Draco Malfoy, who turned out to be significantly more snobbish when talking with someone he viewed as lower than him on the social ladder. In fact, the boy reminded him of a skinny Dudley.

But his day did get a good bit more interesting when Harry went into Ollivander's shop. The musty, dusty air tickled his nose in an unpleasant way, but Harry found he couldn't stop sniffing the air. There was an interesting, pleasant scent that clung to everything, one that aroused his inner beast.

Harry rang the bell on the counter. Barely a second later, a sliding ladder moved into view, bringing the shop's owner with it. "Curious. How very curious. I wondered if and when I'd be seeing you, Mr. Potter." He paused, cocking his head to the side. "Or would that be _James?"_

"James is my father's name."

"You know exactly who I'm talking about. You're well known around these parts, Demon Surgeon," Ollivander remarked. He hopped off the ladder and strolled towards the opposite side of the counter. As he moved, he grabbed a wand box off the shelf.

"How did you know?"

"It was obvious that there was more to James than met the eye," the wandmaker said, "but as for connecting _him_ to _you_? Well, I dare say it's for the very same reason you're drooling at me."

Harry, to his embarrassment, realized he was drooling. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his robes. "Smell, I guess."

"The stench of death clings to you. Most would never notice it. People like me, however... We are not nearly so blind."

"Like you?"

"Like me." He slid open the box, but didn't remove the wand and didn't offer the box to Harry. "Jame's wand, where did you get it? And might I see it if you have it with you?"

Harry transformed and withdrew the wand from the pouch of skin Harry carried it in. Just as quickly, he changed back to human form. "I found it on the body of a recently killed wizard."

"Marcus Patterson, class of '46. Yew with thestral hair, 13 inches, unusually pliable for its make. A very dark-oriented wand, one of my father's creations. Hmm..." The wandmaker took the wand and inspected it. "How does the wand work for you?"

"It's too affectionate," Harry griped. "I feel dirty even holding it, but of all the wands I've touched, it works the best."

"You have won it's loyalty, but this wand isn't a good match for you. Yew is _definitely_ not the wood for you, but thestral hair... that could work." He returned Harry's stolen wand and closed the box of the wand he'd brought out. Ollivander disappeared into the back for a bit.

When he returned, he was carrying three very dusty boxes. "I don't make wands with thestral hair. I've never liked the stuff. My father made several wands with it as the core, however. Let's see if one of these will work for you."

Harry took the first wand presented to him, an eleven-inch wand of Cherry that seemed to ignore Harry. Ollivander instructed him to give it a wave. When he did, Harry felt as if his magic had been suddenly yanked through the wand and forced to explode outward.

"No, not that." Ollivander exchanged the wands. "Try this."

This time, the wand seemed to snuggle into his hand. Harry gave it a wave, only for a vase on a nearby shelf to explode.

"Tricky. And this one?"

The wand Harry took this time felt excellent. It almost seamlessly connected with his magic. Harry could feel it as one could feel their own arm, but could ignore it in just the same way. It didn't demand his attention, but it didn't shun him or snap at him either. Harry gave it a wave, causing brilliant crimson sparks to emerge.

"Good, good. Maple and thestral hair, thirteen and a quarter inches, and quite rigid without being brittle. A good wand for someone who isn't afraid to explore anything." The wandmaker's eyes glanced back to the shelves. "Curious. I thought you would have been destined for another wand." Ollivander looked back. "Well, no matter. That will be seven galleons."

* * *

"Hey, Harry!"

Like the snowy owl Hagrid had just gotten for him as a gift, Harry's head turned a good distance to see who'd called. "Jacob?"

Beside Harry, Hagrid stopped and turned as well.

"I didn't expect to see you here."

Harry shrugged. "Hagrid's taking me shopping for my school supplies. I've been staying at the castle since Professor Snape saved me from Mr. James."

"Saved you... from Mr. James?" Jacob asked.

Harry winked. "Professor Dumbledore discovered how Mr. James had kidnapped me and altered my memories. They got my real memories back."

"That's awful," Jacob said. "I'm glad you're alright. Harry, if I'd known..."

"Don't worry about it." Harry then spoke to the half-giant. "Hagrid, this Jacob. He lived and worked near where I was living. We're... friends? Acquaintances? Something like that."

That seemed to be good enough for Hagrid. "Well any friend of Harry's a friend of mine." He shook the other man's hand.

"A pleasure," Jacob replied. "Harry, some of the others are wondering where you went; you disappeared on us."

"Well, Hagrid just got me an owl for my birthday. I'll send Hedwig with some letters." Harry rubbed the spot behind his ear that corresponded to where Jacob's communication runes were. Though Harry didn't activate them, Jacob got the intended message anyway.

"Brilliant. We'll be waiting."

"Alrighty, Harry, let's get a move on," Hagrid said.

"Bye, Jacob!" Harry followed Hagrid.

Once Harry was out of earshot but not yet out of sight, Jacob pressed a finger against the runes. "Nod if you're alright." The shade relaxed when the boy's head bobbed an affirmative. "Did they alter your memories?" A shake of the head. "Good. I'll await your letter."

Jacob walked on, content that his master was safe.

* * *

There may have been anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards on the castle, but that didn't stop Harry from getting in and out of the stone fortress. He'd simply gone down to Lupa's Room in the dungeons, hung a shadow-portal tag from the bars that encaged her painting, and then stretched the shadows that it cast until they were large enough for him to simply walk through.

Harry reappeared inside Jacob's shadow. When Jacob assured him that the coast was clear, Harry restored himself to his proper, three-dimensional shape. "Being flat is weird," he remarked as he clambered out of the shadow.

"I bet," Jacob remarked. "Anyway, I've got the materials you asked for in your letters."

Harry took the shrunken bag from his shade and pocketed it. His hand came out holding a handful of galleons, enough to cover their cost plus a little extra for Jacob himself. "Thanks."

"So you really are okay up there?"

"All I have to do is keep my nose buried in a library book or occasionally go exploring while pretending to be an excitable kid."

"You _are_ an excitable kid."

"No, I'm an excitable monster. Not that much different, but yeah." Harry grinned cheekily. "It's not really that bad. Plus, the magic of the castle itself is on my side, even if the staff isn't."

"How so?"

"The sorting hat covered for me, showed me where this brilliant secret room is, and helped me with another problem I was having."

"That's neat," Jacob said. "I didn't know the school did that. I dropped out after my OWLs in fifth year, so I probably never found a good bit of what the school could do."

Harry frowned at that. Ever since he'd found the _Blood Magicks_ book, he'd had quantifiable proof that knowledge really was power. The more you knew about what you wanted the magic to do, the more efficient your magic was; thus, when you learned about a topic, you effectively became a more powerful wizard regarding that branch of magic in terms of stamina alone, nevermind the intellectual benefits. To Harry, the idea of _abandoning_ knowledge was anathema to his entire way of life.

"Well, if there's ever anything you want to know about, I can check the Hogwarts Library for you."

Jacob chuckled. "You're there for your education, not mine. Focus on yourself."

"Still, the offer's open."

"Thanks, but I probably won't take you up on that." Jacob shook his head. "In other news, I may have dropped a hint that you were working on a mind protection setup to some of the trustworthy guys."

"I wasn't ready to spread that around just yet," Harry said.

" _Which is why_ I didn't say it was done. I implied that it was only a work in progress right now," Jacob defended, waving his arms about. "Ye of little faith."

"Fine."

"The reason I bring this up is someone offered ten thousand galleons to be the first to get it when you start selling."

"Ten thousand?!" If Harry's understanding was correct, that was more than most Aurors and Hit-Wizards made in a year. That was definitely a small fortune for one relatively easy job.

"The bloke's gotten into some shady things. Keeping secrets is worth it for him."

"Who?"

"Conover, remember him?"

Harry did. Not well, but he knew the name and face of the guy in question. It was one of the men who'd willingly given up his shadow in exchange for power. "Him. Tell him it's going to be a while. I've already found one possible flaw and I haven't finished testing it yet." Harry explained about the sorting hat; if one magical artifact could get in, why not another? Jacob agreed with Harry's logic, and said he'd pass the message on.

His business concluded, Harry used Jacob's shadow to warp back to Hogwarts.

* * *

Taking the train seemed ridiculous. There were already faster ways to get around than by train, and even if there weren't, _Harry was already at Hogwarts_. For crying out loud, they'd portkeyed him to London, only to turn around and stick him on the Hogwarts express.

"It's a school tradition," the headmaster had explained when Harry complained about it. "It's a good chance to make friends before you are divided into houses."

At the risk of sounding like a petulant child, Harry didn't want to make friends with human children. But... he silently supposed that he could work with them and guide them, like a shepherd fattening up his herd for slaughter. And so what if he was still _technically_ human? Humans were weak prey that deserved to be eaten, and the demonic boy had no intention of remaining human.

There were advantages and disadvantages to becoming a demon, sure, but in Harry's case, he was already most of the way there anyway and the disadvantage didn't really inconvenience him all that much, especially when compared to the benefits. His research had already given him most of what he needed; now, it was a simple matter of getting the fine details out of the restricted section.

But that was a task for the near future. Right now, he needed to play the role of the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry passed through the platform barrier and boarded the train. He quickly found a compartment with only one guy in it — enough that he wouldn't have to spend the whole trip in silence, but the minimum number of other people possible. Better yet, the kid seemed engrossed in his own book, something that struck a chord with Harry.

"Mind if I sit here?" Harry asked.

"Meh, sure." The boy didn't look up.

Harry let himself in and put his trunk and Hedwig's cage on the rack. Then he flopped into the opposite seat. He bent over just a bit so that he could better see the book's cover.

 _Harry Potter and the Shadow Thief_

 _By Adam Boot_

Harry choked back a laugh. It was one of those stupid Harry Potter books that painted him as some sort of happy-go-lucky hero that always beat the villains and saved the day, despite being a kid. And he knew that author; he'd met the man as James. The fact that he may have accidentally inspired both the hero and the apparent villain of the book amused him greatly.

"That book any good?"

"My dad wrote it. Of course it is." The boy _still_ didn't look up.

The train's whistle blew, then the cars lurched into motion. Harry reclined in his seat and gazed out the window, watching the scenery pass by at ever increasing speeds. The smirk plastered on his face showed no signs of fading.

* * *

The door to their compartment opened. "Has anyone seen a toad? A boy called Neville has lost it."

"No, sorry." Harry shook his head. "But I can help you look."

"No, that's alright," the bushy-haired girl said. Harry spotted the exact moment she recognized who he was. "You're—"

Harry used a little of his magic to pin her lips shut, while at the same time, he made a shushing motion with his finger. He stood and walked up to her. "Yes, I am, but he doesn't know that yet. He's reading one of those dumb fiction books about me and has been since I got on the train. Don't ruin the surprise, please."

The girl's eyes jumped towards the reading boy. Unlike Harry, she couldn't suppress her snicker. "Oh my. I like books too, but I like to think I'm not _that_ oblivious to the rest of the world."

"If you like books, wait until you see the Hogwarts Library. I heard it rearranges itself to help you find what you want and need the most."

"Really?! That's wicked!" She looked down the length of the train car. "Sorry, I've got to keep helping Neville."

"We'll have a chance to talk later... err..."

"Hermione Granger," she supplied.

"Hermione," Harry repeated. "And you know me. See you 'round."

She was nice enough, and she seemed the scholarly type. Perhaps he'd take her shadow for his collection.

* * *

The train arrived at the station. The first years were herded by Hagrid towards the boats. In the confusion, Harry ended up getting separated from the Boot kid before he'd noticed who Harry was. Harry made a note of asking him about his book as soon as he could, preferably in a very public place.

The first years were placed on boats that sailed themselves across the lake. Harry managed to grab the boat with Hermione and a boy that he learned was the toad-losing boy, Neville. The castle from this angle was rather impressive, but Harry had already seen it before. Instead, he took the opportunity to ask Hermione a question.

"How much magic do you know already?"

"I've read through all of the _Standard Book of Spells: Grade 1_ already. I've done most of the spells in there already," she replied proudly.

"So you've got a good grasp on wand magic already? Have you tried other types?"

"I only learned I was a witch earlier this year..."

Harry took that as a _no_. "Well, from what I've heard, wizard can use just about anything to channel their magic. Staves, wardstones, crystal balls, their own body... nobody's found a limit, save for maybe cast iron and even that's not an absolute. Some stuff is better than others, which is why wands are so useful. I... had the _misfortune_ of running into a guy who used _human blood_ in his spells."

"Ugh, that's revolting," Hermione exclaimed.

"Not to mention _really_ illegal and really dangerous," Neville added. "My gran said that even with how evil You-Know-Who was, he stayed away from blood magic."

"Well — _and don't quote me on this_ — but I heard it sets your blood on fire if you mess up," Harry replied. It was _technically_ the truth, but that only happened outside the body, and even then it was really rare.

The two other occupants of the boat both shuddered.

"Anyway, my point is that you can use anything for magic. I was just curious if you'd done anything interesting, Hermione," Harry said. "What about you, Nevil?"

"I bounced when Great Uncle Algie threw me out the window," Neville replied. "Didn't really want to try that again, but at least I knew I had magic and I wasn't a squib."

"Accidental magic, a wizard's first wandless spells," Harry replied.

They didn't have any more time to talk, as the boats had arrived at the opposite shore. However, his last comment gave the other two first-years something to think about.

* * *

After Professor McGonagall gave her opening speech, she led the first years into and through the great hall, where they gathered near a stool bearing the sorting hat. The sorting commenced; Terry Boot, the boy from the train, ended up in Ravenclaw, while Hermione and Neville went to Gryffindor and Draco Malfoy ended up in Slytherin. Hermione's and Neville's sortings surprised him, as he'd pegged them as a Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff, respectively, from what little he knew about them.

When the professor called up Harry, he quickly took a seat. _Hello again, Mr. Potter. I see everything is working out for you so far. No need to answer aloud; I can see your thoughts,_ the hat whispered into his mind.

 _Now, have you thought about that question I asked you?_

' _Between power and knowledge? Why couldn't I seek power for the sake of knowledge?'_

The hat laughed out loud, causing a few raised eyebrows among the onlookers. _That is exactly the sort of answer I expected from you. While Slytherin would benefit you and_ from _you greatly, and all the other houses would happily take you in, there is no better place for you than—_ **"RAVENCLAW!"**

Harry pulled the hat off and hopped off the stool. He quickly sat down at the Ravenclaw table, right next to Terry Boot. Most of the people around him congratulated him, thinking his goofy grin was in because of his sorting. It was, but only in part.

Only once the sorting concluded and the food had materialized on the table did Harry _finally_ speak to Terry. "So, did you enjoy the book?"

Terry choked on the chicken wing he was eating. "W-what?!"

"That book you were reading on the train. The one written by your dad. The one you wouldn't look up from for hours and hours. The book you were reading while I was sitting in the compartment with you. _That_ book?"

Terry's face whet absolutely scarlet. At the mention of "book," every Ravenclaw in earshot was listening in. They all saw his mortified expression.

"Oh Merlin..."

"Do you want me to sign it for you, hm?"

"Please stop. I'm sorry..." he whimpered.

Harry plucked a chicken wing from the tray. His grin, while not filled with shark teeth, was still just a tad too wide to be humanly possible. "Alright, I won't tell them that you were reading a _Harry Potter_ novel while I was in the compartment with you." Harry looked around in mock shock, as if just noticing his audience. " _Oops_."

Snickers rang out throughout the onlookers, and Harry could tell that the story was already making its way down the table. Harry clapped Terry on the back. "Don't worry, I'm flattered."

Terry's face dropped onto the table. _"Whhhyyyy..."_

"Just think, if it's this bad when you've been here less than an hour, you can only go up from here," Harry said.

Terry didn't seem all that enthused.


	6. Classes

In transfiguration, charms, and defense, Harry found himself alternating between dreadfully bored and moderately interested. The theory immediately held his attention; when explained by a teacher who knew what they were doing and loved to teach it, Harry found himself gaining insights his other books skipped, a common occurrence when they generally assumed he was already decently proficient in magical theory. On the other hand, however, he'd already read through his textbooks, so the classes involved a good bit of rehashing.

Practical work was even worse. With the theory usually explained ahead of time, the practical part was more a combination of rote practice and an examination of information retention. In more succinct terms, the parts Harry liked about practical experimentation had been distilled away. What was the fun of turning a needle into a matchstick or a beetle into a button if you couldn't examine the how and why, if the answers were already given to him.

To Harry's growing horror, it seemed as if his classmates were struggling to even draw upon their magic (except for Draco, but Harry attributed that to his own work). Half of the class time seemed to be dedicated to just getting them to coax their magic forwards, to convince them that they could do it. Hell, out of boredom, Harry had sat his wand on his desk and through sheer force of will _stared_ the beetle into becoming a button.

That had amazed the professor, earned his house a lot of points, and earned Harry the ire of his envious peers. The theory was nice, and he could see how the practicals would _eventually_ become genuinely practical with the increasing difficulty, but right now, Harry was bored.

And he couldn't even bring other books to class to read, less the professors get mad at him for not paying attention.

As for Defense specifically, Harry knew he could outperform everything they'd ever be taught this year. When he'd created his Attack and Defense rune sets, he'd started sparring with Jacob, who had a different set of runes, to test them out. This was baby stuff. (Though the week they'd practiced the knockback jinx _did_ give Harry several ideas to expand his own arsenal of blood paper spells.)

On the other hand, Herbology, Potions, Flying, and Astronomy were much more interesting. Having precisely _zero_ experience with the first three and having only used a muggle star chart and phase calendar for the latter, everything was entirely new. Plus, flying was flying; what wasn't to love about that?

Potions was especially fun for Harry. Having temporarily dropped the "storm shield" on his mind, he and professor Snape sparred with each other through legilimency and occlumency, with Harry trying to read the potion instructions out of Snape's mind while Snape tried to dig up Harry's recent memories.

The only class that was irredeemably boring was History. Thankfully, after three days, Harry learned from the elder Ravenclaws that you could read other books in that class. The notes for Binns's class and the answers to his tests were available in a rather ornately decorated and heavily charmed notebook available in the common room library. Apparently, it was treasured by Ravenclaw students almost as much as Rowena Ravenclaw's lost diadem. Its author even had a portrait in the common room.

Harry's weekends were quickly taken up by Healing with Madam Pomfrey and Slavery Time (a.k.a. scrubbing cauldrons for books) with Snape. And so it was that Harry's time fell into a routine. That is, until a solid two months into his official first year, when Harry found the answers he was looking for.

The book wasn't what he was expecting. It was in the restricted section, yes, but it was not a book on demons, nor a book on magic. No, _The Worlds Around Us_ was a book on planeswalking. It had caught his eye, so Harry opened it up and read the starting passage.

* * *

 _Where does magic come from?_

 _We, the authors of this book, do not know. This book makes no attempt to answer that question, as it is likely something beyond our ability to even attempt to understand. However, the reason we ask this question is the question that it begets:_

 _If magic comes from somewhere, how do we, witches and wizards, receive magic?_

 _ **That**_ _we can answer. In short, the answer is Dimensional Transcendence, the founding topic of this book. The definition of Dimensional Transcendence is as follows: (1) the ability to exist in multiple locations at once and to move between locations without bounds, (2) the ability to move space itself, and 3) the ability to transcend causality via superluminal space-like motion. All of this will be explained in-depth later in the book. But, for now, let us construct an analogy for you._

 _Let us imagine a canyon in which a river flows and a great wind blows, both in the same direction. Let us also imagine a muggle on a raft and a wizard on a broom._

 _This river represents the world of the living. By sailing up and down this river, you can get anywhere in the world you want to go. However, if you reach the ocean, you die._

 _For the muggle in the raft, they can steer themselves to anywhere they wish to go, but the rapids of the river prevent them from turning back. Inevitably, they will reach the ocean. The same goes for the wizard, who will be blown towards the ocean if they do not constantly fight the wind._

 _But you can see here how the wizard has the advantage. They can fly. Rapids are no obstacle. (As this is a metaphor for location, not time, flying back does not necessarily mean turning back the clock.) What's more, they could fly over the canyon and descend into another fork of the river, a place that the muggle could never reach no matter how hard he tried. And if the wizard wanted too, they could reach up to the clouds and call down the rain to shape the landscape below._

 _Right there, we have many of a wizard's staple abilities. Extending one's lifespan (flying back), apparition (flying over the canyon walls), magic (the rain), and creating magically expanded spaces (shaping the landscape)._

 _But then, what if a wizard chose to fly to another canyon entirely?_

 _That is what planeswalking is: the ability to change the stream of life you sail. Like how all canyons exist under one sky, all planes exist under the magic of our universe. They might be far apart or they might be very nearby, but they are there._

 _In some canyons, the wind might not blow or the river might not flow; in others, the opposite might be true, and they blow and flow harder than ever. In some planes, you might never age at all, while in others, you might age so rapidly that you die within the day. Obviously, we will teach you how to recognize and avoid such a fate._

 _There is one risk, however, that is unavoidable. When you change streams of life, except in a specific set of circumstances, you_ _ **must**_ _become that stream's dominant form of life. We have found worlds of everything from dark elves to spirits and living flame, and to enter any of them, you must first surrender your humanity. This is not as much of a problem as it seems, for even if you cease being human, you cannot cease being a dimensionally transcendent wizard, and returning to this world would restore your humanity immediately._

 _But recall how dimensional transcendence includes the ability to exist in multiple locations at once. In practice, this is akin to straddling the planes of reality, to be in two planes at once. While a difficult skill that only the greatest planeswalker could achieve, it is immensely useful, as it makes one into a literal doorway between worlds that other people and things can use to cross the gap. But, one should take the greatest care when straddling worlds, for you run the risk of encountering a daemon, a being of great power that exists in any plane at once, yet no plane in particular._

* * *

Harry stopped reading. A daemon? According to his other research, a true demon was just a malicious form of a daemon. However, this book gave him an insight into what a daemon actually was. And if it was correct...

He see what was happening to him as his thoughts worked everything out. To use this book's canyon analogy, the runes he'd carved into his body were making him "fly" higher and higher. The seventh set of seven would push him out of this plane entirely, where he would almost certainly crash on the hard "ground" between "rivers." It would destroy him and leave a demon behind.

But if he were to prepare correctly, he could "land" outside of his plane of existence. He could become a daemon.

Harry jotted down some notes — things to research, tools he needed, and the like. Then he eagerly resumed his reading. There was so much to see, so much to learn. He wanted to travel the world — or, _worlds,_ now that he had this book — and to learn everything there was to learn.

True daemons were immortal beings, unkillable because, despite being aware of what was going on at their present location and being able to interact with things there as any physical being was, they _weren't actually there_. They were _nowhere_ and _anywhere_ at once — dimensional transcendence at its greatest (though not _everywhere_ , as that was omnipresence and something else entirely). You could only define a daemon's location by where it wasn't, not where it was.

And while anyone could become a demon (it wasn't all that hard), it took a lot of preparation to craft a body that could survive the transformation such that they became a daemon instead of a mindless demon. And, from every bit of research Harry had found so far, all possible preparations had the same first step.

Perform the blood demon ritual.

Step one: _check_.

* * *

Harry's leg tapped irritably as he sat in defense against the dark arts. Professor Quirrell's stuttering was unusually irritating to him today, and the subject matter (the curse of the bogies) was irritatingly dull. Sure, the nosokinetic curse shared its foundations with all disease manipulating spells, but Harry already knew this spell and the theory behind it.

Beside him, Terry glanced over to Harry with a worried expression on his face. They might not have been very good friends, but it was obvious to the other Ravenclaw that Harry was at his wit's end. The expression on Harry's face was one Terry (and most other Ravenclaws) knew well: boredom.

The other Ravenclaw first-years seemed bored as well, in Terry's opinion, but none looked like they were ready to claw their own skin off like Harry was.

Terry blinked, then revised that thought. Harry _literally_ looked like he was ready to claw something to shreds; his hands, which were tugging at his robes and shaking with barely-contained rage, had twisted into bestial claws covered in mangy black fur.

Terry swallowed the lump forming in his throat. Then, loud enough to be overheard, Terry asked, "Hey, Harry? Are you feeling alright? You're looking kind of ill..."

"What, no! I'm fine." He didn't sound fine; his voice came out strangely. Harry's eyes widened at the sound.

Terry watched as the transformation on his hands swiftly reversed. "But didn't you say your stomach was bothering you earlier? You shouldn't risk it."

Harry's face went through a mix of emotions before settling on gratefulness. "I guess..."

Then, louder, Terry said, "Professor, can I take Harry to the hospital wing? He's not looking so good."

"O-o-of c-course, M-Mr. B-B-Boot. C-come back st-straight aw-w-way."

Terry grabbed Harry's hand and stood up, dragging Harry with him. The two of them quickly exited the room. Only when they were out of earshot of anyone who might have been listening did Terry say, "You're welcome. I won't tell anyone what I saw."

"What _did_ you see?" Harry asked, his voice strange — though not in the same way had been in the class. It was a normal, healthy, human voice, but the tone sent shivers down Terry's spine.

"Your hands. They changed," Terry explained, suddenly much more nervous. Harry was behind him, and a deep part of him wanted desperately to run without turning back.

"Thank you, Terry. And you're right. You _won't_ be telling anyone. _Not a soul._ "

Terry turned around. There, framed by a writhing mass of shadows, were six glowing eyes.

He didn't have time to scream.

* * *

Harry hoisted Terry Boot back to his feet after he'd collapsed. He didn't say anything, and instead just waited for Terry to speak.

Terry groaned, rubbing his sore head. "Bloody Hell..." His eyes met Harry's. He recoiled, but when he realized that everything seemed normal and he _wasn't_ about to be eaten by a shadow demon straight out of his father's book, he relaxed a bit. "What was that?"

"You learned a bit of my secret," Harry replied. "I had to take precautions."

Terry processed that. "You mean that was real?"

"Yes."

"Bloody Hell," he repeated.

Harry grinned. "Hey, funny story: I'm a shapeshifter of sorts. I've been one for years now. The thing is, all my forms except this one and one other are literally monsters. And because of how my transformation works, I often end up without clothes, but I can turn my own skin into a fake cloak. I can also manipulate shadows a bit, which I use to hide my other form's face. I end up looking like a dementor with glowing eyes and a leather cloak. Sound familiar?"

Terry blinked; it did. "My dad's book!"

"Yep. I was out for lunch in my other form and ran into your dad. He thought I looked really cool and asked if he could use my appearance for his book." Harry chuckled, his stress melting away as he spoke. "I may have nicked the book out of your trunk and may have given it a read. Your dad pretty much nailed the persona I was using at the time. Feels weird to be both the hero _and_ the villain of the same book, though."

"No kidding." Terry stood back up with Harry's assistance. "That's really cool."

"You won't tell anyone, right? I'm trying to keep it a secret. The only reason I'm telling you is..." Harry's shadow darkened and started writhing around. Terry jumped back a bit from it. "Like the villain from the book, I'm the Shadow Thief."

"You took my shadow?"

Harry shrugged. "I gave it back. I've already made all the changes I need too anyway."

Terry looked down at his own shadow. He moved around a bit, and though his shadow was a tad darker than it should have been, it moved exactly in time with his motions. "I feel like I should be more upset with you about this than I am."

"That's part of it. The changes keep you from resenting the changes themselves. That, and forcibly readjust your loyalties." Terry's head jerked back to face Harry. Harry grinned, his teeth turning shark-like. "I do hope you weren't imagining that I was the _hero,_ were you?"

"Fuck."

Harry laughed. His face shifted back to being fully human again. "Don't be upset. Seriously, I'm not going to be asking you to do anything except keep your mouth shut about what I am. Hell, I wanted to leave you completely alone, but I screwed up. Plus, I owe you a pair of favors now — one for getting me out of class when I was about to explode and one for stealing your shadow. That last one's worth a lot, so save it for something good."

"Fine," Terry groused. "I'm going to hold you to that. Now, is there anything else I should know before a problem arises?"

Harry thought for a moment. "Snape's the only other person in Hogwarts whose shadow I've stolen and replaced. I got him before school even started; his tormenting me is an act, and because my father bullied him, he has a semi-valid target to let his spite out on who he knows can and will take the abuse. I've got another few things, but you don't need to know about those just yet."

"Thank Merlin for small mercies," Terry muttered.

"Anyway, I'm going to go to the hospital wing and study there for a bit — thanks again for that — just so it doesn't look like we're deliberately skipping."

"I'm coming with you. I'd do anything to get out of there."

"Is there a kid in that room who wouldn't?" Harry retorted.

"Nope."

The two boys shared a laugh and made their way towards the hospital wing. And though Harry knew that Terry's judgement was currently being clouded by his power, he couldn't help but feel a little closer to his roommate.

* * *

Harry wanted to celebrate, but he held off until he'd checked his work for mistakes. He didn't want to get trapped somewhere because of a stupid mistake. However, when he ran through his work twice more and got exactly the same answer both times, he finally allowed himself to cheer.

"I didn't know homework was that exciting," Terry quipped.

Harry threw his pen at Terry's head. "I'm not doing homework, you idiot. I've been working on this project of mine for almost a month," Harry replied, casually summoning his pen back with a flick of his wrist as he spoke. "This is for something else."

"Care to share?"

"Nope." Harry stuck out his tongue. "I'm not done yet; this is only one of the last major steps. Unfortunately, the rest is going to take a long time to prepare."

Harry stood from the desk and shoved the books and his notes into his bag. He immediately headed towards the common room door. "Later, Terry."

Harry rushed down the many flights of stairs between the Ravenclaw tower and the Hogwarts dungeons. As he passed through an empty part of the castle, Harry drew his personal wand. Unlike most spells, the simple act of will wasn't enough; he ran through a full incantation and the complex wand motions he'd memorized. His body momentarily blurred and duplicated. Just as the duplicates were solidifying, one of them vanished into the shadow of the other. Harry continued onward almost as if he'd never stopped in the first place, though his breathing was significantly more labored. When he finally arrived down in the dungeons, he jogged to Snape's office and knocked on the door.

"Come in."

The demonic boy pushed open the door. "Professor Snape."

"Yes, Potter?"

"Lucius Malfoy. I assume he has a number of good contacts for — hypothetically speaking — acquiring a rare and potentially _troublesome_ artifact."

"He is a _respectable_ member of society? Why would you even think that?" Severus quipped. "Besides, even if he did, why would I tell you?"

"Because, again hypothetically speaking, I _might_ know a man willing to do some specialized work for the chance to use such an artifact," he smoothly replied.

The potions master's wand flicked to the side. A bubble of energy expanded out from around him, enveloping the two. At the same moment, the door to the office slammed shut and locked itself. "Talk."

"I need access to an Atlantean Glass, and I need it for about six hours."

Severus's jaw dropped. For the potion's master, that was about as extreme a reaction as Neville Longbottom screaming profanities. "An _Atlantean Glass?!_ Do you even know what that is?"

"A seven-dimensional hypersphere of glass manufactured in Atlantis that enables wizards to see and scry into other planes of existence. It also lets a user easily perform dimensional magic. A person looking through the glass without the proper protections runs the risk of being driven mad at worst, and having their perspective on reality temporarily warped at best," Harry casually remarked. He pulled out the planeswalking book and showed it to Severus. "Of course, if I can't get access to one _here_ , I could always go to Atlantis myself and get one."

"You are _not_ going to Atlantis, and you are _not_ getting an Atlantean glass. You are out of your mind _already._ "

Harry didn't immediately respond. Instead, he flipped open the book to a bookmarked page near the beginning and turned the book so Snape could see it. "I just cast this spell on my way here. Let that sink in for a bit."

The spell on the page required an understanding of a few high-level geometric and physical concepts, but for a wizard whose brain was literally hardwired to understand the intricacies required for magic, they weren't all that hard to learn. And once the user knew the concepts, the spell (which served as a stepping-stone to the rest of the book) was easy enough to pull off. Hell, Harry figured that he'd be able to do it without the incantation in a week and with only his blood a few days after that.

The _multilocus_ spell, to the casual onlooker, allowed a wizard to duplicate himself once or twice. In actuality, it allowed the user to exist in multiple places at the same time and interact with both independently; however, the user still had one body. They shared damage, fatigue, form, memories, spell effects, and everything else. Though it served as a powerful tool for a planeswalker, when used such that both copies stayed in the same plane, it had a lot of drawbacks. Case-in-point, Harry was already getting a headache in the time it took Snape to read the spell's description.

"You used this?!" Snape demanded. "Cancel the spell. Discard the other you."

"No, Severus. I won't," Harry insisted. His body stretched upwards, turning into the hooded figure that Snape knew could eat him in a second. "Either you confirm that Lucius has the knowledge and resources I need and help me, or this meeting is just a formality letting you know that I have already things into my own hands."

Snape scowled at the demonic figure. "Lucius _might_ have the resources to get what you're looking for. They won't be cheap."

Harry's body shifted back. He flicked his wand and canceled the spell, causing his body to momentarily blur and eliciting a small pop. "Thank you, Severus. That will be all." He strolled towards the door.

"You are going to get yourself killed."

Harry turned his head back. "My soul is already a hair's breadth away from imploding under the strain of the magic I have on myself and the murders I've committed. I am _trying_ to save myself in a way that I _also_ profit from. Surely you can understand that, _Head of Slytherin_."

Harry turned and walked out the door without giving the professor a chance to respond.

* * *

"Malfoy."

Draco's conversation with his friends, sycophantic yes-men, and/or body guards ground to a halt as the blond turned his attention towards Harry. "Potter. Finally decided to join some worthwhile company for once?"

"Hardly. I'm merely playing messenger today. Mind if we talk in private?"

"If we must." Draco, rather than standing to walk with Harry somewhere more private, shooed the other Slytherins away. They complied without a fuss. "Now, what is this about?"

"A mutual acquaintance of ours wishes to get in contact with the Malfoy family, especially your father. He needs assistance on a project of his, and is willing to go to great lengths to achieve his goal. I think you will find his offer quite... _invigorating_." Harry handed two envelopes to Draco, one addressed to Lucius, the other not addressed at all. "The blank envelope is proof of its authenticity, one only a member of your family should recognize. The other is for your father."

"I didn't know you knew that man, Potter. You're the light's golden-boy. He'd never bother with someone like you."

"According to Albus Dumbledore, I was kidnapped by him when I was nine." Harry sneered in a decent emulation of Snape. "And according to him, our esteemed potions master found me within days of discovering I was missing. Anyway, _he_ looks forward to hearing back from you."

"I'll pass on the message."

"Thank you, Malfoy."

* * *

 _Father,_

 _Harry Potter approached me today, claiming that he was playing messenger. His letter was from the_ _ **man we hired earlier this summer**_ _, for you. He also had a letter that he claimed was proof. Father, it was a piece of parchment with an exact copy of our_ _ **procedure**_ _detailed on it. I double checked it myself; it's accurate. It even has the exact date and time the procedure was done._

 _This is genuinely from him. I have not read the letter myself, but Potter claims it is a business deal of some sort. That man needs assistance on a project, and is willing to trade his work for it._

 _I have included both the letter and the proof for you to see, with the_ _ **standard**_ _protection spells, of course._

 _And in case you are wondering, I do not know why Potter was the one to deliver this to me. He claims some sort of connection — likely a willing one — with that man, one that_ _ **a certain leader**_ _either does not know about or was told a_ _ **different**_ _part of the_ _ **story**_ _._

 _I await your response, and I think they do too._

 _Your son._


End file.
